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A HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY 


BY 


I I 




\ 


Mrs. OLIPHANT 

AUTHOR OF 

THE CUCKOO IN THE NEST,” ‘‘THE SORCERESS,” “ WITHIN THE PRECINCTS,’ 
“young musgrave,” “Oliver’s bride,” “a rose in june,” 

ETC. 



"Nm ¥otit 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 

1894 



'rz-3 

■ G* 4^' ^cru. 

C 0 I-.-, ^2, 

d 


Copyright, 1894, by 
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 


yill rights reserved. 


A HOUSE IN BLOOMSBURY. 





CHAPTER I. 



“ Father,” said Dora, I am going upstairs for 
a little, to see Mrs. Hesketh, if you have no 
objection.” 

^‘And who is Mrs. Mesketh, if I might make 
so bold as to ask?” Mr. Mannering said, lifting 
his eyes from his evening paper. 

“ Father! I told you all about heron Sunday 
—that she’s all alone all day, and sometimes her 
husband is so late of getting home. She is so 
lonely, poor little thing. And she is such a nice 
little thing I Married, but not so big as me.” 

‘‘And who is-her husband?” Mr. Man¬ 

nering was about to say, but he checked himself. 
No doubt he had heard all about the husband too. 
He heard many things without hearing them, 
being conscious rather of the pleasant voice of 
Dora running on tlian of everything she said. 

This had, no doubt, been the case in respect 
to the young couple upstairs, of whose existence 
he had become dimly sensible by reason of meet¬ 
ing one or other of them on the stairs. But there 
was nothing in the appearance of either which 
had much attracted him. They appeared to him 


I 




2 A House in Bloomsbury, 

a commonplace couple of inferior kind ; and per¬ 
haps had he been a man with all his wits keenly 
about him, he would not have allowed his child 
to run wild about the little woman upstairs. But 
Mr. Mannering did not keep his wits about him 
sharpened to any such point. 

Dora was a child, but also she was a lady, 
proof against any contamination of acquaintance 
which concerned only the letters of the alphabet. 
Her “h’s” could take care of themselves, and so 
could her “r’s’'. As for anything else, Mr. 
Mannering’s dreamy yet not unobservant eyes 
had taken in the fact that the young woman, who 
was not a lady, was an innocent and good little 
woman ; and it had never occurred to him to be 
afraid of any chance influence of such a kind for 
his daughter. He acquiesced, accordingly, with 
a little nod of his head, and return of his mild 
eyes to his paper. 

These two were the best of companions ; but 
he was not jealous of his little girl, nor did he 
desire that she should be for ever in his sight. 
He liked to read his paper; sometimes he had a 
book which interested him very much. The 
thought that Dora had a little interest in her life 
also, special to herself, pleased him more than if 
she had been always hanging upon him for 
her amusement and occupation. He was not 
afraid of the acquaintance she might make, which 
was a little rash, perhaps, especially in a man who 
had known the world, and knew, or ought to have 
known, the mischief that can arise from unsuitable 
associates. 


A House in Bloomsbury, 3 

But there are some people who never learn ; 
indeed, few people learn by experience, so far as 
I have ever seen. Dora had been an independent 
individuality to her father since she was six years 
old. He had felt, as parents often feel with a 
curious mixture of feelings, half pleasure, half sur¬ 
prise, half disappointment (as if there could be 
three halves ! the reader will say ; but there are, 
and many more), that she was not very much in¬ 
fluenced by himself, who was most near to her. 
If such things could be weighed in any balance, 
he was most, it may be said, influenced by her. 
She retained her independence. Hov/ was it 
possible then that, conscious of this, he should be 
much alarmed by any problematical influence that 
could be brought to bear upon her by a stranger } 
He was not, indeed, the least afraid, 

Dora ran up the stairs, which were dark at the 
top, for Mrs. Simcox could not afford to let her 
lodgers who paid so low a rent have a light on 
their landing; and the landing itself was encum¬ 
bered by various articles, between which there 
was need of wary steering. But this little girl 
had lived in these Bloomsbury lodgings all her 
life, and knew her way about as well as the 
children of the house. Matters were facilitated, 
too, by the sudden opening of a door, from which 
the light and, sad to say, something of the smell 
of a paraffin lamp shone out, illuminating the rosy 
face of a young woman, with a piece of sewing in 
her hand, who looked out in bright expectation, 
but clouded over a little when she saw who it was. 
“Oh, Miss Dora!” she said; and added in an 


4 A House in Bloomsbmj, 

undertone, I thought it was Alfred home a little 
sooner than usual,” with a little sigh. 

“ I made such a noise,” said Dora, apologeti¬ 
cally. I couldn’t help it. Jane will leave so 
many things about.” 

“ Oh, it’s me, Miss Dora. I does my rooms 
myself; it saves a deal on the rent. I shouldn’t 
have left that crockery there, but it saves trouble, 
and I’m not that used to housework.” 

“No,” said Dora, seating herself composedly 
at the table, and resisting, by a strong exercise of 
'self-control, her impulse to point out that the lamp 
could not have been properly cleaned, since it 
smelt so. “One can see,” she added, the fact 
being incontestable, “ that you don’t know how to 
do many things. And that is a pity, because 
things then are not so nice.” 

She seemed to cast a glance of criticism about 
the room, to poor little Mrs. Hesketh’s excited 
fancy, who was ready to cry with vexation. “ My 
family always kep’ a girl,” she said in a tone of 
injury subdued. But she was'proud of Dora’s 
friendship, and would not say any more. 

“So I should have thought,” said Dora, critical, 
yet accepting the apology as if, to a certain extent, 
it accounted for the state of affairs. 

“ And Alfred says,” cried the young wife, “ that 
if we can only hold on for a year or two, he’ll 
make a lady of me, and I shall have servants of 
my own. But we ain’t come to that yet—oh, not 
by a long way.” 

“ It is not having servants that makes a lady,” 
said Dora. “ We are not rich.” She said this 


A House in Bloomsbury. 5 

with an ineffable air of superiority to all such 
vulgar details. “ I have never had a maid since 
I was quite a little thing.” She had always been 
herself surprised by this fact, and she expected 
her hearer to be surprised. “ But what does that 
matter?” she added. “One is oneself all the 
same.” 

“ Nobody could look at you twice,” said the 
admiring humble friend. “ And how kind of you 
to leave your papa and all your pretty books and 
come up to sit with me because I’m so lonely! It 
is hard upon us to have Alfred kep’ so late every 
night.” 

“ Can’t he help it?” said Dora. “If I were 
you, I should go out to meet him. The streets 
are so beautiful at night.” 

“Oh, Miss Dora!” cried the little woman, 
shocked. “He wouldn’t have me go out by my¬ 
self, not for worlds ! Why, somebody might speak 
to me ! But young girls they don’t think of that. 
I sometimes wish I could be taken on among the 
young ladies in the mantle department, and then 
we could walk home together. But then,” she 
added quickly, “ I couldn’t make him so comfort¬ 
able, and then-” 

She returned to her work with a smile and a 
blush. She was always very full of her work, 
making little “ things,” which Dora vaguely sup¬ 
posed were for the shop. Their form and fashion 
threw no light to Dora upon the state of affairs. 

“ When you were in the shop, were you in 
the mantle department ? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, no. My figure isn’t good enough,” said 



6 A House in Bloomsbury. 

Mrs. Hesketh ; “you have to have a very good 
figure, and look like a lady. Some of the young 
ladies have beautiful figures, Miss Dora; and such 
nice black silks—as nice as any lady would wish 
to wear—which naturally sets them off.” 

“ And nothing to do 1 ” said Dora, con¬ 
temptuously. “ I should not like that.” 

“ Oh, you ! But they have a deal to do. Fve 
seen ’em when they were just dropping down with 
tiredness. Standing about all day, and putting 
on mantles and things, and pretending to walk 
away careless to set them off Poor things! I’d 
rather a deal stand behind the counter, though 
they’ve got the best pay.” 

“ Have you been reading anything to-day ? ” 
said Dora, whose attention was beginning to flag. 

Mrs. Hesketh blushed a little. “ I’ve scarcely 
sat down all day till now; I’ve been having a 
regular clean-out. You can’t think how the dust 
gets into all the corners with the fires and all that. 
And I’ve just been at it from morning till night. 
I tried to read a little bit when I had my tea. 
And it’s a beautiful book, Miss Dora, but I was 
that tired.” 

‘‘It can scarcely take a whole day,” said Dora, 
looking round her, “ to clean out this one little 
room.” 

“ Oh, but you can’t think what a lot of work 
there is, when you go into all the corners. And 
then I get tired, and it makes me stupid.” 

“Well,” said Dora, with suppressed impatience, 
“ but when you become a lady, as you say, with 
servants to do all you want, how will you be able 


A House m Bloomsbury. 7 

to take up a proper position if you have never read 
anything ? ” 

“ Oh, as for that,” said Mrs. Hesketh in a tone 
of relief, '‘that can’t be for a long time yet; and 
you feel different when you’re old to what you do 
when you’re young.” 

" But I am young,” said Dora. She changed 
the subject, however, more or less, by her next 
question. " Are you really fond of sewing ? ” she 
said in an incredulous tone ; " or rather, what are 
you most fond of What should you like best to 
do . 5 ^” 

" Oh! ” said the little wife, with large open 
eyes and mouth—she fell off, however, into a sigh 
and added, " if one ever had what one wished 
most! ” 

“And why not?” said inexperienced Dora. 
“ At least,” she added, “ it’s pleasant to think, even 
if you don’t have what you want. What should 
you like best ? ” 

“ Oh,” said Mrs. Hesketh again, but this time 
with a long-drawn breath of longing consciousness, 
“ I should like that we might have enough to live 
upon without working, and Alfred and me always 
to be together,—that’s what I should like best.” 

“ Money?” cried Dora with irrepressible scorn. 

“Oh, Miss Dora, money! You can’t think 
how nice it would be just to have enough to live 
on. I should never, never wish to be extravagant, 
or to spend more than I had; just enough for 
Alfred to give up the shop, and not be bound down 
to those long hours any more ! ” 

“And how much might that be?” said Dora, 


8 


A House in Bloomsbury. 


with an air of grand yet indulgent magnificence, 
as if, though scorning this poor ideal, she might 
yet perhaps find it possible to bestow upon her 
friend the insignificant happiness for which she 
s'ghed. 

“ Oh, Miss Dora, when you think how many 
things are wanted in housekeeping, and one’s 
dress, and all that—and probably more than us,” 
said Mrs. Hesketh, with a bright blush. She too 
looked at the girl as if it might have been within 
Dora’s power to give the modest gift. “ Should 
you think it a dreadful lot,” said the young 
woman, “ if I said two hundred a year .^” 

“Two hundred pounds a year.^” said Dora 
reflectively. “ I think,” she added, after a pause, 
“ father has more than twice as much as that.” 

“La!” said Mrs. Hesketh; and then she 
made a rapid calculation, one of those efforts of 
mental arithmetic in which children and simple 
persons so often excel. “He must be saving up 
a lot,” she said admiringly, “ for your fortune, 
Miss Dora. You’ll be quite an heiress with all 
that.” 

This was an entirely new idea to Dora, who 
knew of heiresses only what is said in novels, 
where it is so easy to bestow great fortunes. 
“ Oh no, I shall not be an heiress,” she said ; 
“and I don’t think we save up very much. 
Father has always half a dozen pensioners, and 
he buys books and—things.” Dora had a feel¬ 
ing that it was something mean and bourgeois— 
a word which Mr. Mannering was rather apt to 
use—to save up. 


A House in Bloomsbury. 9 

“Oh!” said Mrs. Hesketh again, with her 
countenance falling. She was not a selfish or 
a scheming woman; but she had a romantic 
imagination, and it was so easy an exercise of 
fancy to think of this girl, who had evidently 
conceived such a friendship for herself, as “left’* 
rich and solitary at the death of her delicate 
father, and adopting her Alfred and herself as 
companions and guardians. It was a sudden 
and passing inspiration, and the young woman 
meant no harm, but there was a visionary dis¬ 
appointment in her voice. 

“ But,” said Dora, with the impulse of a 
higher cultivation, “it is a much better thing to 
work than to do nothing. When father is at 
home for a few days, unless we go away some¬ 
where, he gets restless ; and if he were always at 
home he would begin some new study, and work 
harder than ever.” 

“ Ah, not with folks like us, Miss Dora,” said 
Mrs. Hesketh. Then she added: “A woman 
has always got plenty to do. She has got her 
house to look after, and to see to the dinner and 

things. And when there are children-” Once 

more she paused with a blush to think over that 
happy prospect. “ And we’d have a little 
garden,” she said, “where Alfred could potter 
about, and a little trap that we could drive about 
in, and take me to see places, and oh, we’d be as 
happy as the day was long! ” she cried, clasping 
her hands. The clock struck as she spoke, and 
she hastily put away her sewing and rose up. 
“You won’t mind. Miss Dora, if I lay the table 



lo A House in Bloomsbury, 

and get things ready for supper? Alfred will 
soon be coming now.” 

Oh, I like to see you laying the table,” said 
Dora, ‘'and I’ll help you—I can do it very well. 
I never let Jane touch our nice clean tablecloths. 
Don’t you think you want a fresh one ? ” she said, 
looking doubtfully at the somewhat dingy linen. 
“ Father always says clean linen is the luxury of 
poor people.” 

“Oh!” said little Mrs. Hesketh. She did 
not like criticism any more than the rest of us, 
nor did she like being identified with “ poor 
people”. Mr. Mannering’s wise yet foolish 
aphorism (for how did he know how much it cost 
to have clean linen in Bloomsbury—or Belgravia 
either, for that matter ?) referred to persons in his 
own condition, not in hers ; but naturally she did 
not think of that. Her pride and her blood were 
up, however; and she went with a little hurry and 
vehemence to a drawer and took out a clean 
tablecloth. Sixpence was the cost of washing, 
and she could not afford to throw away sixpences, 
and the other one had only been used three or 
four times ; but her pride, as I have said, was up. 

“And where are the napkins?” said Dora. 
“ I’ll lay it for you. I really like to do it: and a 
nicely-laid table, with the crystal sparkling, and 
the silver shining, and the linen so fresh and 
smooth, is a very pretty object to look at, father 
always says.” 

“Oh dear! I must hurry up,” cried Mrs. 
Hesketh ; “ I hear Alfred’s step upon the stairs.” 

Now Dora did not admire Alfred, though she 


A House in Bloomsbury, 11 

was fond of Alfred’s wife. He brought a sniff of 
the shop with him ; which was disagreeable to the 
girl, and he called her “miss,” which Dora hated. 
She threw down the tablecloth hurriedly. “ Oh, 
I’ll leave you then,” she cried, “for I’m sure he 
does not like to see me here when he comes in.” 

“ Oh, Miss Dora, how can you think such a 
thing ? ” cried her friend ; but she was glad of the 
success of her expedient when her visitor dis¬ 
appeared. Alfred, indeed, did not come in for 
half an hour after; but Mrs. Hesketh was at 
liberty to make her little domestic arrangements 
in her own way. Alfred, like herself, knew that 
a tablecloth cost sixpence every time it went to 
the wash—which Dora, it was evident, did not do. 

Dora found her father reading in exactly the 
same position as she had left him ; he had not 
moved except to turn a leaf. He raised his head 
when she came in, and said: “ I am glad you 
have come back, Dora. I want you to get me a 
book out of that bookcase in the corner. It is on 
the third shelf.” 

“ And were you so lazy, father, that you would 
not get up to find it yourself.^ ” 

“Yes, I was so lazy,” he said, with a laugh. 
“ I get lazier and lazier every day. Besides, I 
like to feel that I have some one to do it for me. 
I am taking books out of shelves and putting 
them back again all the day long.” 

Dora put her arm on her father’s shoulder, as 
she put down the book on the table before him. 
“ But you like it, don’t you, father You are not 
tired of it.” 


12 A House in Bloomsbury. 

“ Of the Museum?” he said, with a laugh and 
a look of surprise. “ No ; I am not tired of it— 
any more than I am of my life.” 

This was an enigmatical reply, but Dora did 
not attempt to fathom it. “ What the little people 
upstairs want is just to have money enough to 
live on, and nothing to do,” she said. 

“ The little people? And what are you, Dora? 
You are not so very big.” 

“ I am growing,” said Dora, with confidence ; 
‘‘and I shouldn’t like to have nothing to do all 
my life.” 

“ There is a great deal to be said for that view 
of the question,” said Mr. Mannering. “ I am not 
an enthusiast for mere work, unless there is some¬ 
thing to come out of it. ‘ Know what thou canst 
work at’ does not apply always, unless you have 
to earn your living, which is often a very fortunate 
necessity. And even that,” he said, with a smile, 
“has its drawbacks.” 

“ It is surely far better than doing nothing,” 
cried Dora, with her young nose in the air. 

“Well, but what does it come to after all? 
One works to live, and consumes the fruits of 
one’s work in the art of living. And what better 
is that than if you had never been ? The balance 
would be much'the same. But this is not the sort 
of argument for little girls, even though they are 
growing,” Mr. Mannering said. 

“ I think the Museum must have been very 
stuffy to-day, father,” was the remark which Dora 
made. 


CHAPTER II. 


The Mannerings lived in a house in that district 
of Bloomsbury which has so long meant every¬ 
thing that is respectable, mediocre, and dull,—at 
least, to that part of the world which inhabits 
farther West. It is possible that, regarded from 
the other side of the compass, Bloomsbury may 
be judged more justly as a city of well-sized and 
well-built houses, aired and opened up by many 
spacious breathing-places, set with stately trees. It 
is from this point of view that it is regarded by 
many persons of humble pretensions, who find large 
rooms and broad streets where in other districts 
they would only have the restricted space of 
respectable poverty, the weary little convention¬ 
ality of the suburban cottage, or the dingy lodging- 
house parlours of town. 

Bloomsbury is very much town indeed, sur¬ 
rounded on all sides by the roar of London; but it 
has something of the air of an individual place, a 
town within a town. 

The pavements are wide, and so are the 
houses, as in the best quarter of a large provincial 
city. The squares have a look of seclusion, of 
shady walks, and retired leisure, which there is 
nothing to rival either in Belgravia or Mayfair. 
It is, or was—for it is many years since the 
present writer has passed over their broad pave- 

(13) 


14 A House in Bloomsbury. 

merits, or stood under the lai'ge, benignant, and 
stately shadow of the trees in Russell Square— 
a region apart, above fashion, a sober heart and 
centre of an older and steadier London, such as is 
not represented in the Row, and takes little part 
in the rabble and rout of fashion, the decent 
town of earlier days. 

I do not mean to imply by this that the 
Manneidngs lived in Russell Square, or had any 
pretensions to be regarded among the magnates 
of Bloomsbury ; for they were poor people, quite 
poor, living the quietest life; not rich enough 
even to have a house of their own ; mere lodgers, 
occupying a second floor in a house which was 
full of other lodgers, but where they retained the 
importance and dignity of having furnished their 
own rooms. The house was situated at the 
corner of a street, and thus gave them a glimpse 
of the trees of the Square, a view over the gardens, 
as the landlady described it, which was no small 
matter, especially from the altitude of the second 
floor. The small family consisted of a father and 
daughter—he, middle-aged, a quiet, worn, and 
subdued man, employed all day in the British 
Museum; and she, a girl very young, yet so much 
older than her years that she was the constant 
and almost only companion of her father, to 
whom Dora was as his own soul, the sharer of all 
his thoughts, as well as the only brightness in his 
life. 

She was but fifteen at the time when this 
chapter of their history begins, a creature in short 
frocks and long hair slightly curling on her shoul- 


A House in Bloomsbury. 15 

ders ; taller, if we may state such a contradiction 
in words, than she was intended to be, or turned 
out in her womanhood, with long legs, long 
neck, long fingers, and something of the look of a 
soft-eyed, timid, yet playfully daring colt, flying- 
up and down stairs as if she had wings on her 
shoulders, yet walking very sedately by the side 
of her father whenever they went out together, 
almost more steady and serious than he. 

Mr. Mannering had the appearance of being 
a man who had always done well, yet never suc¬ 
ceeded in life ; a man with a small income, and 
no chance of ever bettering himself, as people 
say, or advancing in the little hierarchy of the 
great institution which he served meekly and 
diligently in the background, none of its promo¬ 
tions ever reaching him. 

Scarcely any one, certainly none out of that 
institution, knew that there had been a period in 
which this gentle and modest life had almost been 
submerged under the bitterest wave, and in which 
it had almost won the highest honours possible to 
a man of such pursuits. This was an old story, 
and even Dora knew little of it. He had done so 
much at that forgotten and troubled time, that, 
had he been a rich man like Darwin, and able to 
retire and work in quiet the discoveries he had 
made, and the experiences he had attained, 
Robert Mannering’s name might have been 
placed in the rolls of fame as high as that of his 
more fortunate contemporary. 

But he was poor when he returned from the 
notable wanderings during the course of which 


16 A House in Bloomsbury, 

he had been given up as dead for years, poor and 
heartbroken, and desiring nothing but the dim¬ 
mest corner in which to live out his broken ciays, 
and just enough to live upon to bring up his little 
daughter, and to endure his existence, his duty 
to God and to Dora forbidding him to make an 
end of it. 

It would be giving an altogether false idea of 
the man with whom this book is to be much 
occupied, to say that he had continued in this 
despairing frame of mind. God and Dora—the 
little gift of God—had taken care of that. The 
little girl had led him back to a way which, if not 
brilliant or prosperous, was like a field-path through 
many humble flowers, sweet with the air and 
breath of nature. Sooth to say, it was no field- 
path at all, but led chiefly over the pavements of 
Bloomsbury; yet the simple metaphor was not 
untrue. 

Thus he lived, and did his work dutifully day 
by day. No headship of a department, no assist¬ 
ant keepership for him; yet much esteem and con¬ 
sideration among his peers, and a constant refer¬ 
ence, whenever anything in his special sphere was 
wanted, to his boundless information and know¬ 
ledge. Sometimes a foreign inquirer w^ould come 
eager to seek him, as the best and highest 
authority on this subject, to the consternation of 
the younger men in other branches, who could 
not understand how anybody could believe “old 
Mannering” to be of consequence in the place; 
but generally his life was as obscure as he wished 
it to be, yet not any hard or painful drudgery ; 


A House in Bloomsbury, 17 

for he was still occupied with the pursuit which 
he had chosen, and which he had followed all his 
life ; and he was wise enough to recognise and be 
thankful for the routine which held his broken 
existence together, and had set up again, after 
his great disaster, his framework as a man. 

Dora knew nothing of any disaster; and this 
was good for him too, bringing him back to 
nature. “A cheerful man I am in life,” he might 
have said with Thackeray, who also had good 
reason for being sad enough. A man who has 
for his chief society a buoyant, curious, new spirit, 
still trailing clouds of glory from her origin, still 
only making acquaintance with things of earth, 
curious about everything, asking a thousand pene¬ 
trating questions, awakening a mood of interest 
everywhere, can scarcely be otherwise than cheer¬ 
ful. 

The second floor at the corner of the Square 
which was inhabited by this pair consisted of 
three rooms, all good-sized and airy ; the sitting- 
room being indeed spacious, larger than any two 
which could have been found in a fashionable 
nook in Mayfair. It was furnished, in a manner 
very unexpected by such chance visitors as did 
not know the character of the inhabitants, with 
furniture which would not have been out of place 
in Belgravia, or in a fine lady’s drawing-room 
anywhere, mingled strangely with certain plain 
pieces put in for evident use. 

A square and sturdy table occupied the por¬ 
tion of the room which was nearest to the door, 
with the clearest utility, serving for the meals of 
2 


i8 A House in Bloomsbury^ 

the father and daughter, while the other part of 
the room, partially separated by a stamped leather 
screen, had an air of subdued luxury, a little faded, 
yet unmistakable. The curtains were of heavy 
brocade, which had a little lost their colour, or 
rather gained those shadings and reflections which 
an artist loves; but hung with the softness of 
their silken fabric, profoundly unlike the landlady’s 
nice fresh crimson rep which adorned the windows 
of the first floor. There was an Italian inlaid 
cabinet against the farther wall, which held the 
carefully prepared sheets of a herbarium, which 
Mr. Mannering had colhcted from all the ends 
of the earth, and which was of sufficient value to 
count for much in the spare inheritance which he 
meant for his only child. The writing-table, at 
which Dora had learned to make her first pot¬ 
hooks, w^as a piece of beautiful marqueteriey the 
oldest and most graceful of its kind. 

But I need not go round the room and make a 
catalogue of the furniture. It settled quite kindly 
into the second floor in Bloomsbury, with that 
grace which the nobler kind of patrician, subdued 
by fortune, lends to the humblest circumstances, 
which he accepts with patience and goodwill. 
Mr. Mannering himself had never been a hand¬ 
some man ; and all the colour and brightness of 
youth had died out of him, though he was still in 
the fulness of middle age. But the ivory tone of 
his somewhat sharply cut profile and the prema¬ 
ture stoop of his shoulders suited his surroundings 
better than a more vigorous personality would 
have done. 


A Hotise in Bloomsbury. 19 

Dora, in her half-grown size and bigness, with 
her floating hair and large movements, seemed to 
take up a great deal more space than her father; 
and it was strange that she did not knock down 
more frequently the pretty old-fashioned things, 
and the old books which lay upon the little tables, 
or even those tables themselves, as she whisked 
about; but they knew Dora, and she knew them. 
She had spent a great part of every day alone 
with them, as long as she could remember, play¬ 
ing with those curiosities that lay upon them, 
while she was a child, in the long, silent, dreamy 
hours, when she was never without amusement, 
though as constantly alone. 

Since she had grown older, she had taken 
pleasure in dusting them and arranging them, ad¬ 
miring the toys of old silver, and the carved ivories 
and trifles of all kinds, from the ends of the earth. 
It was her great pleasure on the Sunday after¬ 
noons, when her father was with her, to open the 
drawers of the cabinet and bring out the sheets of 
the herbarium so carefully arranged and classified. 
Her knowledge, perhaps, was not very scientific, 
but it was accurate in detail, and in what may be 
called locality in the highest degree. She knew 
what family abode in what drawer, and all its 
ramifications. These were more like neighbours 
to Dora, lodged in surrounding houses, than speci¬ 
mens in drawers. She knew all about them, where 
they came from, and their genealogy, and which 
were the grandparents, and which the children ; 
and, still more interesting, in what jungle or marsh 
her father had found them, and which of them 


20 A Hotise in Bloomsbury, 

came from the African deserts in which he had 
once been lost. 

By degrees she had found out much about that 
wonderful episode in his life, and had become 
vaguely aware, which was the greatest discovery 
of all, that it contained many things which she had 
not found out, and perhaps never would. She 
knew even how to lead him to talk about it, which 
had to be very skilfully done—for he was shy of 
the subject when assailed openly, and often shrank 
from the very name of Africa as if it stung him; 
while on other occasions, led on by some train of 
thought in his own mind, he would fall into long 
lines of recollections, and tell her of the fever 
attacks, one after another, which had laid him low, 
and how the time had gone over him like a dream, 
so that he never knew till long after how many 
months, and even years, he had lost. 

Where was the mother all this time, it may be 
asked ? Dora knew no more of this part of her 
history than if she had come into the world without 
need of any such medium, like Minerva from her 
father’s head. 

It is difficult to find out from the veiled being 
of a little child what it thinks upon such a subject, 
or if it is aware at all, when it has never been used 
to any other state of affairs, of the strange vacancy 
in its own life. Dora never put a single question 
to her father on this point; and he had often asked 
himself whether her mind was dead to all that side 
of life which she had never known, or whether 
some instinct kept her silent; and had satisfied 
himself at last that, as she knew scarcely any other 


A House in Bloomsbury. 21 

children, the want in her own life had not struck 
her imagination. Indeed, the grandchildren of 
Mrs. Simcox, the landlady, were almost the only 
children Dora had ever known familiarly, and they, 
like herself, had no mother, they had granny; and 
Dora had inquired of her father about her own 
granny, who was dead long ago. 

“You have only me, my poor little girl,’’ he 
had said. But Dora had been quite satisfied. 

“Janie and Molly have no papa,” she answered, 
with a little pride. It was a great superiority, 
and made up for everything, and she inquired no 
more. Nature, Mr. Mannering knew, was by no 
means so infallible as we think her. He did not 
know, however, what is a still more recondite and 
profound knowledge, what secret things are in a 
child’s heart. 

I have known a widowed mother who 
wondered sadly for years why her children 
showed so little interest and asked no questions 
about their father; and then found out, from the 
lips of one grown into full manhood, what visions 
had been wrapt about that unknown image, and 
how his portrait had been the confidant of many 
a little secret trouble hidden even from herself. 
But Dora had not even a portrait to give embodi¬ 
ment to any wistful thoughts. Perhaps it was to 
her not merely that her mother was dead, but 
that she had never been. Perhaps—but who 
knows the questions that arise in that depth 
profound, the heart of a child } 

It was not till Dora was fifteen that she 
received the great shock, yet revelation, of 


2 2 A Hotise in Bloomsbury. 

discovering the portrait of a lady in her fathers 
room. 

Was it her mother? She could not tell. It 
was the portrait of a young lady, which is not a 
child’s ideal of a mother. It was hidden away in 
a secret drawer of which she had discovered the 
existence only by a chance in the course of some 
unauthorised investigations among Mr. Manner- 
ing’s private properties. 

He had lost something which Dora was intent 
on surprising him by finding; and this was what 
led her to these investigations. It was in a second 
Italian cabinet which was in his bedroom, an 
inferior specimen to that in the drawing-room, 
but one more private, about which her curiosity 
had never been awakened. He kept handker¬ 
chiefs, neckties, uninteresting items of personal 
use in it, which Dora was somewhat carelessly 
turning over, when by accident the secret spring 
was touched, and the drawer flew open. In this 
there was a miniature case which presented a very 
strange spectacle when Dora, a little excited, 
opened it. There seemed to be nothing but a 
blank at first, until, on further examination, Dora 
found that the miniature had been turned face 
downwards in its case. It may be imagined with 
what eager curiosity she continued her investiga¬ 
tions. 

The picture, as has been said, was that of a 
young lady—quite a young lady, not much older, 
Dora thought, than herself. Who could this girl 
be ? Her mother ? But that girlish face could 
not belong to any girl’s mother. It was not 


A House in Bloomsbury, 23 

beautiful to Dora’s eyes ; but yet full of vivacity 
and interest, a face that had much to say if one 
only knew its language ; with dark, bright eyes, 
and a tremulous smile about the lips. Who was 
it; oh, who was it ? Was it that little sister of 
papa’s who was dead, whose name had been Dora 
too ? Was it- 

Dora did not know what to think, or how to 
explain the little shock which was given her by 
this discovery. She shut up the drawer hastily, 
but she had not the heart to turn the portrait 
again as it had been turned, face downwards. It 
seemed too unkind, cruel almost. Why should 
her face be turned downwards, that living, smiling 
face “ I will ask papa,” Dora said to herself; 
but she could not tell why it was, any more than 
she could explain her other sensations on the 
subject, that when the appropriate moment came 
to do so, she had not the courage to ask papa. 


CHAPTER III. 


There was one remarkable thing in Dora Man- 
nering’s life which I have omitted to mention, 
which is, that she was in the habit of receiving 
periodically, though at very uncertain intervals, 
out of that vast but vague universe surrounding 
England, which we call generally “abroad,” a 
box. No one knew where it came from, or 
who it came from ; at least, no light was ever 
thrown to Dora upon that mystery. It was 
despatched now from one place, now from an¬ 
other ; and not a name, or a card, or a scrap of 
paper was ever found to identify the sender. 

This box contained always a store of delights 
for the recipient, who, though she was in a man¬ 
ner monarch of all she surveyed, was without 
many of the more familiar pleasures of childhood. 
It had contained toys and pretty knick-knacks of 
many quaint foreign kinds when she was quite a 
child ; but as she grew older, the mind ot her 
unknown friend seemed to follow her growth with 
the strangest certainty of what would please these 
advancing youthful years. 

The foundation of the box, if that word may 
be employed, was always a store of the daintiest 
underclothing, delicately made, which followed 
Dora’s needs and growth, growing longer as she 
grew taller; so that underneath her frocks, which 

(24) 


A House in Bloomsbury, 25 

were not always lovely, the texture, form, and 
colour being chiefly decided by the dressmaker 
who had “ made ” for her as long as she could 
remember, Dora was clothed like a princess ; and 
thus accustomed from her childhood to the most 
delicate and dainty accessories—fine linen, fine 
wool, silk stockings, handkerchiefs good enough 
for any fine lady. Her father had not, at first, 
liked to see these fine things ; he had pushed 
them away when she spread them out to show 
him her treasures, and turned his back upon her, 
bidding her carry off her trumpery. 

It was so seldom, so very seldom, that Mr. 
Mannering had an objection to anything done by 
Dora, that this little exhibition of temper had an 
extraordinary effect; but the interval between 
one arrival and another was long enough to sweep 
any such recollection out of the mind of a child; 
and as she grew older, more intelligent to note 
what he meant, and, above all, more curious 
about everything that happened, he had changed 
his tone. But he had a look which Dora classi¬ 
fied in her own mind as “ the face father puts on 
when my box comes 

This is a sort of thing which imprints itself 
very clearly upon the mind of the juvenile specta¬ 
tor and critic. Dora knew it as well as she knew 
the clothes her father wore, or the unchanging 
habits of his life, though she did not for a long 
time attempt to explain to herself what it meant. 
It was a look of intent self-restraint, of a stoical 
repression. He submitted to having the different 
contents of the box exhibited to him without a 


26 A Hottse in Bloomsbury. 

smile on his face or the least manifestation of 
sympathy—he who sympathised with every senti¬ 
ment which breathed across his child’s facile 
spirit. He wound himself up to submit to the 
ordeal, it seemed, with the blank look of an un¬ 
willing spectator, who has not a word of admira¬ 
tion for anything, and, indeed, hates the sight he 
cannot refuse to see. 

“Who can send them, father? oh, who can 
send them ? Who is it that remembers me like 
this, and that I’m growing, and what I must want, 
and everything? I was only a child when the 
last one came. You must know—you must know, 
father ! How could any one know about me and 
not know you—or care for me ? ” Dora cried, with 
a little moisture springing to her eyes. 

“ I have already told you I don’t know any¬ 
thing about it,” said Mr. Mannering, oh, with 
such a shut-up face! closing the shutters upon his 
eyes and drawing down all the blinds, as Dora 
said. 

“ Well, but suppose you don’t know, you 
must guess ; you must imagine who it could be. 
No one could know me, and not know you. I 
am not a stranger that you have nothing to do 
with. You must know who is likely to take so 
much thought about your daughter. Why, she 
knows my little name! There is ‘ Dora’ on my 
handkerchiefs.” 

He turned away with a short laugh. “You 
seem to have found out a great deal for yourself. 
How do you know it is ‘ she ’ ? It might be some 
old friend of mine who knew that my only child 


A House in Bloomsbury, 27 

was Dora—and perhaps that I was not a man 
to think of a girls wants.” 

“It may be an old friend of yours, father. It 
must be, for who would know about me but a 
friend of yoursBut how could it be .a man? 
It couldn’t be a man ! A man could never work 
‘Dora’-” 

“You little simpleton! He would go to a 
shop and order it to be worked. I daresay it is 
Wallace, who is out in South America.” 

Such a practical suggestion made Dora pause; 
but it was not at all an agreeable idea. “Mr. 

Wallace! an old, selfish, dried-up-” Then 

with a cry of triumph she added : “ But they came 
long, long before he went to South America. No 
—I know one thing—that it is a lady. No one 
but a lady could tell what a girl wants. You 
don’t, father, though you know me through and 
through ; and how could any other man ? But I 
suppose you have had friends ladies as well as 
men ? ” 

His closed-up lips melted a little. “ Not 
many,” he said; then they shut up fast again. 
“It may be,” he said reluctantly, with a face from 
which all feeling was shut out, which looked like 
wood, “a friend—of your mother’s.” 

“ Oh, of mamma’s ! ” The girl’s countenance 
lit up ; she threw back her head and her waving 
hair, conveying to the man who shrank from her 
look the impression as of a thing with wings. He 
had been of opinion that she had never thought 
upon this subject, never considered the side of 
life thus entirely shut out from her experience, 



28 A House in Bloomsbury. 

and had wondered even while rejoicing at her in¬ 
sensibility. But when he saw the light on her 
face he shrank, drawing back into himself. 

Oh,” cried Dora, “a friend of my mothers! 
Oh, father, she must have died long, long ago, 
ithat I never remember her. Oh, tell me, who 
can this friend be ” 

He had shut himself up again more closely 
than ever—not only were there shutters at all the 
windows, but they were bolted and barred with 
iron. His face was more blank than any piece of 
wood. “ I never knew much of her friends,” he 
said. 

Mother’s friends! ” the girl cried, with a half 
shriek of reproachful wonder. And then she 
added quickly: “ But think, father, think! You 
will remember somebody if you will only try.” 

“Dora,” he said, “you don’t often try my 
patience, and you had better not begin now. I 
should like to throw all that trumpery out of the 
window, but I don’t, for I feel I have no right 

to deprive you of-Your mother’s friends 

were not mine. I don’t feel inclined to think 
as you bid me. The less one thinks the better— 
on some subjects. I must ask you to question me 
no more.” 

“ But, father-” 

“ I have said that I will be questioned no more.” 

“It wasn’t a question,” said the girl, almost 
sullenly; and then she clasped her hands about 
his arm with a sudden impulse. “ F'ather, if you 
don’t like it. I’ll put them all away. I’ll never 
think of them nor touch them again ” 




A House in Bloomsbury. 29 

The wooden look melted away, his features 
quivered for a moment. He stooped and kissed 
her on the forehead. “No,” he said, making an 
effort to keep his lips firmly set as before. “No ; 
I have no right to do that. No ; I don’t wish it. 
Keep them and wear them, and take pleasure in 
them; but don’t speak to me on the subject again.” 

This conversation took place’on the occasion of 
a very special novelty in the mysterious periodical 
present which she had just received, about which 
it was impossible to keep silence. The box— 
“ my box,” as Dora had got to call it—contained, 
in addition to everything else, a dress, which was 
a thing that had never been sent before. 

It was a white dress, made with great simpli¬ 
city, as became Dora’s age, but also in a costly 
way, a semi-transparent white, the sort of stuff 
which could be drawn through a ring, as happens 
in fairy tales, and was certainly not to be bought 
in ordinary English shops. To receive anything 
so unexpected, so exciting, so beautiful, and not 
to speak of it, to exhibit it to some one, was 
impossible. Dora had not been able to restrain 
herself. She had carried it in her arms out of 
her room, and opened it out upon a sofa in the 
sitting-room for her father’s inspection. There 
are some things which we know beforehand will 
not please, and yet which we are compelled to 
do; and this was the consciousness in Dora’s 
mind, who, besides her delight in the gift, and 
her desire to be able to find out something about 
the donor, had also, it must be allowed, a burning 
desire to make discoveries as to that past of which 


30 A House in Bloomsbury, 

she knew so little, which had seized upon her 
mind from the moment when she had found the 
portrait turned upon its face in the secret drawer 
of her father’s cabinet. As she withdrew now, 
again carrying in her arms the beautiful dress, 
there was in her mind, underneath a certain 
compunction for having disturbed her father, and 
sympathy with him so strong that she would 
actually have been capable of sacrificing her 
newly-acquired possessions, a satisfaction half- 
mischievous, half-affectionate, in the discoveries 
which she had made. They were certainly dis¬ 
coveries ; sorry as she was to “upset father,” 
there was yet a consciousness in her mind that 
this time it had been worth the while. 

The reader may not think any better of Dora 
for this confession ; but there is something of the 
elf in most constitutions at fifteen, and she was 
not of course at all sensible at that age of the 
pain that might lie in souvenirs so ruthlessly 
stirred up. And she had indeed made something 
by them. Never, never again, she promised 
herself, would she worry father with questions ; 
but so far as the present occasion went, she could 
scarcely be sorry, for had not she learned much— 
enough to give her imagination much employ¬ 
ment.^ She carried away her discoveries with 
her, as she carried her dress, to realise them in 
the shelter of her own room. They seemed to 
throw a vivid light upon that past in which her 
own life was so much involved. She threw the 
dress upon her bed carelessly, these other new 
thoughts having momentarily taken the interest 


A Hotcse in Bloomsbury. 31 

out of even so exciting a novelty as that; and 
arranged in shape and sequence what she had 
found out. Well, it was not so much, after all. 
What seemed most clear in it was that father had 
not been quite friends with mother, or at least 
with mother’s friends. Perhaps these friends had 
made mischief between them—perhaps she had 
cared for them more than for her husband; but 
surely that was not possible. And how strange, 
how strange it was that he should keep up such 
a feelin^ so longf! 

o ^ o 

As Dora did not remember her mother, it was 
evident that she must have been dead many, 
many years. And yet her father still kept up his 
dislike to her friends! It threw a new light even 
upon him, whom she knew better than any one. 
Dora felt that she knew her father thoroughly, 
every thought that was in his mind; and yet here 
it would seem that she did not know him at all. 
So good a man, who was never hard with any¬ 
body, who forgave her, Dora, however naughty 
she might have been, as soon as she asked par¬ 
don ; who forgave old Mr. Warrender for contra¬ 
dicting him about that orchid, the orchid that was 
called Manneringii, and which father had dis¬ 
covered, and therefore must know best; who 
forgave Mrs. Simcox when she swept the dust 
from the corners upon the herbarium and spoilt 
some of the specimens ; and yet who in all these 
years had never forgiven the unknown persons, 
who were mother’s friends, some one of whom 
must be nice indeed, or she never would go on 
remembering Dora, and sending her such presents. 


32 A House in Bloomsbury, 

What could he have against this unknown lady, 
—this nice, nice woman? And how was it possible 
that he should have kept it up in his mind, and 
never forgiven it, or forgotten all these years ? 
It made Dora wonder, and feel, though she 
crushed the feeling firmly, that perhaps father was 
not so perfect as she had thought. 

And then there was this lady to think of—her 
mothers friend, who had kept on all this time 
thinking of Dora. She would not have been 
more than a baby when this benefactress saw her 
last, since Dora did not remember either mother, 
or mother’s friend ; yet she must recollect just how 
old Dora was, must have guessed just about how 
tall she was, and kept count how she had grown 
from one time to another. The beautiful dress 
was just almost long enough, almost fitted her in 
every way. It gave the girl a keen touch of 
pleasure to think that she was just a little taller 
and slighter than her unknown friend supposed 
her to be—but so near; the letting down of a hem, 
the narrowing of a seam, and it would be a perfect 
fit. How foolish father must be to think that Mr. 
Wallace, or any other man, would have thought 
of that! Her mother’s friend—what a kind friend, 
what a constant friend, though father did not like 
her! 

It overawed Dora a little to think if ever this 
lady came home, what would happen ? Of course, 
she would wish to see the girl whom she had 
remembered so long, whom she had befriended so 
constantly ; and what if father would not permit 
it? It would be unkind, ungrateful, wrong; but 


A House in Bloomsbury, 33 

what if father objected, if it made him unhappy ? 
Dora did not see her way through this dreadful 
complication. It was sufficiently hard upon her, 
a girl at so early an age, to become the possessor 
of a beautiful dress like this, and have no one to 
show it to, to talk it over with ; nobody even to 
tell her exactly how it fitted, to judge what was 
necessary for its perfection, as Dora herself, with 
no experience, and not even a good glass to see 
herself in, could scarcely do. To hide a secret of 
any kind in ones being at fifteen is a difficult 
thing; but when that secret is a frock, a dress!—a 
robe, indeed, she felt it ought to be called, it was 
so exquisite, so poetical in its fineness and white¬ 
ness. Dora had no one to confide in; and if she 
had possessed a thousand confidants, would not 
have said a word to them which would seem to 
involve her father in any blame. She put her 
pretty dress away, however, with a great sense of 
discomfiture and downfall. Perhaps he would 
dislike to see her wear it, even if she had ever any 
need for a beautiful dress like that. But she 
never had any need. She never went anywhere, 
or saw anybody. A whole host of little grievances 
came up in the train of that greater one. She 
wondered if she were to spend all her life like 
this, without ever tasting those delights of society 
which she had read of, without ever knowing any 
one of her own age, without ever seeing people 
dance, or hearing them sing. As for performing 
in these ways herself, that had not come into Dora s 
mind. She would like, she thought, to look on and 
see how they did it, for once, at least, in her life. 

3 


34 House in Bloomsbury, 

When she had come to this point, Dora, who 
was a girl full of natural sense, began to feel in¬ 
stinctively that she was not in a good way, and 
that it would be better to do something active to 
clear away the cobwebs. It was evening, however, 
and she did not know exactly what to do. To go 
back to the sitting-room where her father was 
reading, and to sit down also to read at his side, 
seemed an ordeal too much for her after the 
excitement of their previous talk ; but it was what 
probably she would have been compelled to do, 
had she not heard a heavy sttp mounting the 
stairs, the sound of a knock at the door, and her 
father’s voice bidding some one enter. 

She satisfied herself presently that it was the 
voice of one of Mr. Mannering’s chief friends, a 
colleague from the Museum, and that he was safe 
for a time not to remark her absence or to have 
urgent need for her. What now should Dora do ? 
The openings of amusement were small. Mrs. 
Hesketh had been exhausted for the moment. It 
must be said that Dora was free of the whole 
house, and that she used her petites entrdes in the 
most liberal and democratic fashion, thinking no 
scorn of going downstairs sometimes to the funny 
little room next to the kitchen, which Mrs. 
Simcox called the breakfast-room, and used as 
her own sanctum, the family centre where her 
grandchildren and herself found refuge out of the 
toils of the kitchen. The kitchen itself remained 
in the possession of Jane; and Jane, like her 
mistress, occasionally shared the patronage of 
Miss Dora. To-night perhaps she wanted solace 


A House in Bloomsbury. 35 

of another kind from any which could be given 
her on the basement story. It is not often that 
a young person in search of entertainment or 
sympathy has all the gradations of the social 
system to choose from. The first floor repre¬ 
sented the aristocracy in the establishment at 
Bloomsbury. It was occupied by a Scotch lady, 
a certain Miss Bethune, a somewhat harsh- 
featured and angular person, hiding a gentle heart 
under a grim exterior; but a little intolerant in 
her moods, and not always sure to respond to 
overtures of friendship; with a maid not much 
less unlike the usual denizens of Bloomsbury than 
herself, but beaming with redness and good 
humour, and one of Dora’s chief worshippers in 
the house. When the girl felt that her needs 
required the sympathy of a person of the highest, 
i.e.y her own class, she went either boldly or with 
strategy' to the drawing-room floor. She had 
thus the power of drawing upon the fellowship of 
her kind in whatever way the temper of the time 
adapted it best for her. 

Mrs. Simcox and the girls downstairs, and 
Mrs. Hesketh above, would have been lost in 
raptures over Dora’s new dress. They would 
have stared, they would perhaps have touched 
with a timid finger, they would have opened their 
eyes and their mouths, and cried: “ Oh! ’’ or 
“ La! ” or Well, I never! ” But they would not 
have understood. One’s own kind, Dora felt, 
was necessary for that. But as it was evening, 
and Miss Bethune was not always gracious, she 
did not boldly walk up to her door, but lingered 


36 A House in Bloomsbury. 

about on the stairs, coming and going, until, as 
was pretty sure to occur, Gilchrist, the maid, with 
her glowing moon face and her sandy locks, came 
out of the room. Gilchrist brightened imme¬ 
diately at the sight of the favourite of the house. 

“Oh, is that you. Miss Dora? Come in and 
see my lady, and cheer her up. She’s not in the 
best of spirits to-night.” 

“ Neither am I—in the best of spirits,” said 
Dora. 

“You!” cried Gilchrist, with what she herself 
would have called a “skreigh” of laughter. She 
added sympathetically : “ You’ll maybe have been 
getting a scold from your papaw ”. 

“ My father never scolds,” said Dora, with 
dignity. 

“ Bless me I but that’s the way when there’s 
but wan child,” said Miss Bethune’s maid : “ not 
always, though,” she added, with a deep sigh that 
waved aloft her own cap-strings, and caught 
Dora’s hair like a breeze. The next moment she 
opened the door and said, putting her head in : 
“ Here’s Miss Dora, mem, to cheer you up a bit : 
but no’ in the best of spirits hersel’ ”. 

“Bless me!” repeated Miss Bethune from 
within: “and what is wrong with her spirits? 
Come away, Dora, come in.” Both mistress and 
maid had, as all the house was aware, curious 
modes of expressing themselves, which were 
Scotch, though nobody was aware in Bloomsbury 
how that quality affected the speech—in Miss 
Bethune’s case at least. The lady was tall and 
thin, a large framework of a woman which had 


A House in Bloomsbury, 37 

never filled out. She sat in a large chair near 
the fire, between which and her, however, a 
screen was placed. She held up a fan before her 
face to screen off the lamp, and consequently her 
countenance was in full shadow. She beckoned 
to the girl with her hand, and pointed to a seat 
beside her. “So you are in low spirits, Dora.^ 
Well, I’m not very bright myself. Come and let 
us mingle our tears.” 

“You are laughing at me. Miss Bethune. 
You think I have no right to feel anything.” 

“ On the contrary, my dear. I think at your 
age there are many things that a girl feels—too 
much; and though they’re generally nonsense, 
they’re just as disagreeable as if they were the 
best of sense. Papa a little cross ” 

“ Why should you all think anything so pre¬ 
posterous? My father is never cross,” cried 
Dora, with tears of indignation in her eyes. 

“ The better for him, my dear, much the 
better for him,” said Miss Bethune ; “but, perhaps, 
rather the worse for you. That’s not my case, 
for I am just full of irritability now and then, and 
ready to quarrel with the tables and chairs. Well, 
you are cross yourself, which is much worse. And 
yet I hear you had one of your grand boxes to¬ 
day, all full of bonnie-dies. What a lucky little 
girl you are to get presents like that! ” 

“ I am not a little girl. Miss Bethune.” 

“ No, I’ll allow you’re a very big one for your 
age. Come, Dora, tell me what was in the box 
this time. It will do you good.” 

Dora hesitated a little to preserve her dignity. 


38 A House in Bloomsbury. 

and then she said almost with awe : “ There was 
a dress in it 

“A dress!’’ cried Miss Bethune, with a little 
shriek of surprise ; “ and does it fit you ? ” 

“ It s just a very, very little bit too short,” 
said Dora, with pride, “and just a very, very 
little bit too wide at the waist.” 

“ Run and bring it, and let me see it,” cried 
the lady. “ I’ve no doubt in the world it fits like 
a glove. Gilchrist, come in, come in, and see 
what the bairn’s got. A frock that fits her like 
a glove.” 

“ Just a very, very little too short, and a very, 
very little too wide in the waist,” said Dora, re¬ 
peating her formula. She had' flown upstairs 
after the first moment’s hesitation, and brought 
it back in -her arms, glad in spite of herself to 
be thus delivered from silence and the sense of 
neglect. 

“ Eh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, “ but it must be 
an awfu’, awfu’ faithful woman that has minded 
how a lassie like that grows and gets big, and 
just how big she gets, a’ thae years.” 

“ There ye are with your moral! ” cried the 
mistress; and to Dora’s infinite surprise tears 
were on her cheeks. “It’s just the lassie that 
makes all the difference,” said Miss Bethune. 
She flung the pretty dress from her, and then she 
rose up suddenly and gave Dora a hasty kiss. 
“ Put it on and let me see it,” she said ; “ I will 
wager you anything it just fits like a glove.” 


CHAPTER IV, 


‘‘That is a very strange business of these Man- 
nerings, Gilchrist,” said Miss Bethune to her 
maid, when Dora, excited by praise and admira¬ 
tion, and forgetting all her troubles, had retired 
to her own habitation upstairs, escorted, she and 
her dress, by Gilchrist, who could not find it in 
her heart, as she said, to let a young thing like 
that spoil her bonnie new frock by not putting it 
properly away. Gilchrist laid the pretty dress 
lovingly in a roomy drawer, smoothing out all its 
creases by soft pats of her accustomed hands, and 
then returned to her mistress to talk over the 
little incident of the evening. 

Miss Bethune’s spirits were improved also by 
that little exhibition. What a thing it is to be 
able to draw a woman softly out of her troubles 
by the sight of a pretty child in a pretty new 
dress ! Contemptible the love of clothes, the love 
of finery, and so forth, let the philosophers say. 
To me there is something touching in that natural 
instinct which relieves for a moment now and 
then the heaviest pressure. Dora’s new frock 
had nothing to do with any gratification of Miss 
Bethune’s vanity ; but it brought a little dawning 
ray of momentary light into her room, and a little 
distraction from the train of thoughts that were 
not over bright. No man could feel the same 
( 39 ) 


40 A House in Bloomsbury, 

for the most beautiful youth ever introduced in 
raiment like the day. Let us be thankful among 
all our disabilities for a little simple pleasure, now 
and then, that is common to women only. Boy 
or girl, it scarcely matters which, when they come 
in dressed in their best, all fresh and new, the 
sight pleases the oldest, the saddest of us—a 
little unconsidered angel-gift, amid the dimness 
and the darkness of the every-day world. Miss 
Bethune to outward aspect was a little grim, an 
old maid, as people said, apart from the sym¬ 
pathies of life. But the dull evening and the 
pressure of many thoughts had been made bright 
to her by Dora s new frock. 

“ What business, mem ? ” asked Gilchrist. 

‘‘If ever there was a living creature slow at the 
uptake, and that could not see a pikestaff when it 
is set before your eyes! ” cried Miss Bethune. 
“ What’s the meaning of it all, you stupid woman ? 
Who’s that away in the unknown that sends all 
these bonnie things to that motherless bairn?— 
and remembers the age she is, and when she’s 
grown too big for dolls, and when she wants a 
frock that will set her off, that she could dance in 
and sing in, and make her little curtesy to the 
world ? No, she’s too young for that; but still 
the time’s coming, and fancy goes always a little 
before.” 

“ Eh, mem,” said Gilchrist, “ that is just what 
I have askit mysel’—that’s just what I was saying. 
It’s some woman, that’s the wan thing; but what 
woman could be so thoughtful as that, aye minding 
just what was wanted?” She made a gesture 


A House in Bloomsbury. 41 

with her hands as if in utter inability to divine, but 
her eyes were fixed all the time very wistfully on 
her mistress’s face. 

“You need not look at me like that,” the lady 
said. 

“ I was looking at you, mem, not in any par- 
ticklar way.” 

“If you think you can make a fool of me at 
the present period of our history, you’re far mis¬ 
taken,” said Miss Bethune. “ I know what you 
were meaning. You were comparing her with me, 
not knowing either the one or the other of us— 
though you have been my woman, and more near 
me than anybody on earth these five-and-twenty 
long years.” 

“ And more, mem, and more ! ” cried Gilchrist, 
with a flow of tears, which were as natural to her 
as her spirit. “Eh, I was but a young, young lass, 
and you a bonnie-” 

“ Hold your peace!” said Miss Bethune, with 
an angry raising of her hand ; and then her voice 
wavered and shook a little, and a tremulous laugh 
came forth. “ I w^as never a bonnie—anything, 
ye auld fool! and that you know as well as me.” 

“ But, mem-” 

“ Hold your peace, Gilchrist! We were 
never anything to brag of, either you or me. 
Look in your glass, woman, if you don’t believe 
me. A couple of plain women, very plain 
women, mistress and maid.” 

This was said with a flash of hazel eyes which 
gave a half-humorous contradiction at the same 
moment to the assertion. Gilchrist began to fold 



42 A House in Bloo?nsbu 7 y, 

hems upon the apron with which she had just 
dried her tears. 

“ I never said,” she murmured, with a down¬ 
cast head, ‘‘ a word about myseh,—that’s no’ a 
woman’s part. If there’s nobody that speaks up 
for her she has just to keep silence, if she was the 
bonniest woman in the world.” 

“ The auld fool! because there was once a 
silly lad that had nobody else to come courting 
to! No, Gilchrist, my womEm, you were never 
bonnie. A white skin, I Eillow, to go with your 
red hair, and a kind of innocent look in your eyes, 
—nothing, nothing more! We were both plain 
women, you and me, not adapted to please the 
eyes of men.” 

“They might have waited long afore we 
would have tried, either the wan or the other of 
us,” cried Gilchrist, with a flash of self-assertion. 
“No’ that I would even mysel’ to you, mem,” she 
added in an after breath. 

“As for that, it’s a metaphysical question,” 
said Miss Bethune. “ I will not attempt to enter 
into it. But try or no’, it is clear we did not 
succeed. And what it is that succeeds is just 
more than I can tell. It’s not beauty, it’s a kind of 
natural attraction.” She paused a moment in this 
deep philosophical inquiry, and then said quickly : 
“All this does not help us to find out what is 
this story about the Mannerings. Who is the 
woman ? Is it somebody that loves the man, or 
somebody that loves the girl ? ” 

“If you would take my opinion, mem, I would 
say that the man—If ye call Mr. Mannering, 


A House in Bloo 7 nsbury. 43 

honest gentleman, the man, that has just every 
air of being a well-born person, and well-bred, and 

not a common person at all-” 

“You haveral! The king himself, if there 
was a king, could be no more than a man.” 

“ I would say, mem, that it was not for him— 
oh, no’ for him, except maybe in opposition, if you 
could fancy that. Supposing,” said Gilchrist, 
raising her arm in natural eloquence, “supposin’ 
such a thing as that there should be a bonnie bairn 
like Miss Dora between two folk that had broken 
with one another—and it was the man, not the 
woman, that had her. I could just fancy,” said the 
maid, her brown eyes lighting, her milky yet 
freckled complexion flushing over,—“ I could just 
fancy that woman pouring out everything at the 
bairn’s feet—gold and silver and grand presents, 
and a’ the pomps of this world, partly out of an 
adoration for her hersel’, partly just to make the 
man set his teeth at her that was away—maybe, 
in the desert—unknown ! ” 

Gilchrist stood like a sibyl making this picture 
flash and gleam before her own inward vision with 
a heat and passion that seemed quite uncalled for 
in the circumstances. What was Hecuba to her, 
or she to Hecuba, that she should be so inspired 
by the possibilities of a mystery with which she 
had nothing to do Her eloquence brought a 
corresponding glow, yet cloud, over the counte¬ 
nance of her mistress, who sat and listened with 
her head leaning on her hand, and for some time 
said nothing. She broke the silence at last with a 
laugh in which there was very little sound of mirth. 


44 ^ House in Blooinsbury, 

“You are a limited woman,” she said—“a 
very limited woman. You can think of no state 
of affairs but one, and that so uncommon that 
perhaps there never was a case in the world like 
it. You will never be done, I know that, taking 
up your lesson out of it—all to learn one that has 
neither need to learn nor wish to learn—a thing 
that is impossible. Mind you what I say, and be 
done with this vain endeavour. Whatever may 
be the meaning of this Mannering business, it has 
no likeness to the other. And I am not a person 
to be schooled by the like of you, or to be taught 
in parables by my own woman, as if I was a 
person of no understanding, and her a mistress of 
every knowledge.” 

Miss Bethune rose hurriedly from her seat, 
and made a turn about the room with an air of 
high excitement and almost passion. Then she 
came and stood before the fire, leaning on the 
mantelpiece, looking down upon the blaze with a 
face that seemed to be coloured by the reflection. 
Finally, she put out a long arm, caught Gilchrist 
by the shoulders, who stood softly crying, as 
was her wont, within reach, and drew her close. 
“You’ve been with me through it all,” she said 
suddenly; “there’s nobody that knows me but 
you. Whatever you say, it’s you only that knows 
what is in my heart. I bear you no ill-will for 
any word you say, no’ for any word you say; 
and the Lord forgive me if maybe all this time it 
is you that has been right and me that has been 
wrong! ” Only a moment, scarcely so much. 
Miss Bethune leant her head upon Gilchrist’s 


A House in Bloomsbury. 45 

shoulder, then she suddenly pushed her away. 
And not a second too soon, for at that moment 
a knock came to the door. They both started 
a little; and Miss Bethune, with the speed of 
thought, returned to the chair shaded by a screen 
from the lamplight and firelight in which she had 
been sitting, “not in good spirits,” at the time of 
the interruption of Dora. “ Go and see who it 
is,” she said, half in words, half by the action of 
her hand. Nothing could have been more 
instantaneous than this rapid change. 

When Gilchrist, scarcely less rapid though so 
much heavier than her mistress, opened the door, 
there stood before it a little man very carefully 
dressed, though in morning costume, in a solemn 
frock coat, with his hat in his hand. Though 
professional costume no longer exists among us, 
it was impossible not to feel and recognise in a 
moment that nothing but a medical man, a doctor 
to the tips of his fingers, could have appeared in 
just that perfect neatness of dress, so well brushed, 
so exactly buttoned, so gravely clothed in garments 
which, though free of any peculiarity of art or 
colour, such as that which distinguishes the garb 
of a clergyman, were yet so completely and 
seriously professional. His whiskers, for it was 
in the days when these ornaments were still worn, 
his hair, brown, with a slight crisp and upturning, 
like lining, of grey, the watch-chain that crossed 
his waistcoat, as well as the accurate chronometer 
of a watch to which so many eager and so many 
languid pulses had beat, were all in perfect keep¬ 
ing ; even his boots—but we must not pursue too 


46 A House in Bloomsbui'y, 

far this discussion of Dr. Roland’s personal 
appearance. His boots were not the polished 
leather of the evening; but they were the spotless 
boots of a man who rarely walked, and whose 
careful step from his carriage to a patient’s door 
never carried in any soil of the outside to the 
most delicate carpet. Why, being one of the 
inhabitants of this same house in Bloomsbury, he 
should have carried his hat in his hand when he 
came to the door of Miss Bethune’s drawing-room 
from his own sitting-room downstairs, is a mystery 
upon which I can throw no light. 

The ideas of a man in respect to his hat are 
indeed unfathomable. Whether he carries it as 
a protection or a shield of pretence, whether to 
convey to you that he is anxiously expected some¬ 
where else, and that you are not to calculate upon 
anything but a short appearance upon your indi¬ 
vidual scene, whether to make it apparent by its 
gloss and sheen how carefully he has prepared for 
this interview, whether it is to keep undue fami¬ 
liarity at arm’s length, or provide a becoming 
occupation for those hands with which many 
persons, while in repose, do not know what to do, 
it is impossible to tell. Certain it is that a large 
number of men find consolation and support in 
the possession of that article of apparel ; and 
though they may freely abuse it in other circum¬ 
stances, cling to it on social occasions as to an 
instrument of salvation. Dr. Roland held it fast, 
and bowed over it with a little formality, as he 
came into his neighbour’s presence. They met 
on the stairs or in the hall sometimes three or 


A House in Bloomsbury. 47 

four times in a day, but they were not the less 
particular in going through all the forms of 
civility when the doctor came to pay a call, as if 
they had not seen each other for a week before. 
He was a man of very great observation, and he 
did not miss a single particular of the scene. 
The screen drawn round the lady, defending her 
not only from the fire but from inspection, and a 
slight glistening upon the cheek of Gilchrist, 
which, as she did not paint or use any cosmetic, 
had but one explanation. That he formed a 
completely wrong conclusion was not Dr. Roland’s 
fault. He did so sometimes from lack of material 
on which to form his judgment, but not often. He 
said to himself, ‘‘ There has been a row,” which, 
as the reader is aware, was not the case ; but then 
he set himself to work to smooth down all agitation 
with a kindness and skill which the gentlest reader, 
knowing all about it, could not have surpassed. 

“ We have just been doing a very wrong 
thing, Gilchrist and me,” said Miss Bethune; 

a thing which you will say, doctor, is the way 
of ladies and their maids ; but that is just one of 
your generalisings, and not true—except now and 
then. We have been wondering what is the 
strange story of our bonnie little Dora and that 
quiet, learned father of hers upstairs.” 

“ Very natural, I should say,” said the doctor. 
“But why should there be any story at all I 
don’t wonder at the discussion, but why should 
there be any cause for it ? A quiet, learned man, 
as you say, and one fair daughter and no more, 
whom he loves passing well.” 


48 A Hottse in Bloomsbury. 

‘‘Ah, doctor,” said Miss Bethune, “you know 
a great deal about human nature. You know 
better than that.” 

The doctor put down his hat, and drew his 
chair nearer the fire. “ Should you like to hear 
the story of poor Mannering.^” he said. 


CHAPTER V. 


There is nothing more usual than to say that 
could we but know the life history of the first half- 
dozen persons we meet with on any road, we 
should find tragic details and unexpected lights 
and shadows far beyond the reach of fiction, which 
no doubt is occasionally true : though probably 
the first half-dozen would be found to gasp, like 
the knife-grinder : “ Story ? Lord bless you! I 
have none to tell, sir.” This, to be sure, would 
be no argument; for our histories are not frequently 
unknown to, or, at least, unappreciated by our¬ 
selves, and the common human sense is against any 
accumulation of wonders in a small space. I am 
almost ashamed to say that the two people who 
inhabited one above the other two separate floors 
of my house in Bloomsbury, had a certain singu¬ 
larity and unusualness in their lives, that they 
were not as other men or women are; or, to speak 
more clearly, that being as other men and women 
are, the circumstances of their lives created round 
them an atmosphere which was not exactly that of 
common day. When Dr. Roland recounted to Miss 
Bethune the story of Mr. Mannering, that lady shut 
her lips tight in the partial shadow of the screen, 
to restrain the almost irrepressible murmurs of a 
revelation equally out of the common which be¬ 
longed to herself That is, she was tempted to 
( 49 ) 4 


50 A House in Bloomsbury. 

utter aloud what she said in her soul, “Oh, but 
that is like me ! ” “ Oh, but I would never have 

done that! ”—comparing the secret in her own 
life, which nobody in this place suspected, with 
the secret in her neighbour’s, which, at least to 
some few persons, was known. 

Poor Mr. Mannering! there was a strange 
kind of superiority and secret satisfaction in pity¬ 
ing his fate, in learning all the particulars of it, in 
assuring herself that Dora was quite ignorant, and 
nobody in the house had the least suspicion, while 
at the same time secure in the consciousness that 
she herself was wrapt in impenetrable darkness, 
and that not even this gossip of a doctor could 
divine her. There is an elation in knowing that 
you too have a story, that your own experiences 
are still more profound than those of the others 
whom you are called upon to pity and wonder 
over, that did they but know!—which, perhaps, is 
not like the more ordinary elation of conscious 
superiority, but yet has its sweetness. There was 
a certain dignity swelling in Miss Bethune’s figure 
as she rose to shake hands with the doctor, as if 
she had wrapped a tragic mantle round her, as if 
she dismissed him like a queen on the edge of 
ground too sacred to be trodden by any vulgar 
feet. He was conscious of it vaguely, though not 
of what it was. He gave her a very keen glance 
in the shadow of that screen : a keener observer 
than Dr. Roland was not easily to be met with,— 
but then his observations were generally turned in 
one particular way, and the phenomena which he 
glimpsed on this occasion did not come within the 


A House in Bloomsbury. 51 

special field of his inquiries. He perceived diem, 
but he could not classify them, in the scientific 
narrowness of his gaze. 

Miss Bethune waited until the well-known 
sound of the closing of Dr. Roland’s door down¬ 
stairs met her ear; and then she rang violently, 
eagerly for her maid. What an evening this was, 
among all the quiet evenings on which nothing 
happened,—an evening full of incidents, of mys¬ 
teries, and disclosures! The sound of the bell 
was such that the person summoned came hurry¬ 
ing from her room, well aware that there must be 
something to be told, and already breathless 
with interest. She found her mistress walking 
up and down the room, the screen discarded, the 
fan thrown down, the very shade on the lamp 
pushed up, so that it had the tipsy air of a hat 
placed on one side of the head. “ Oh, Gilchrist! ” 
Miss Bethune cried. 

Dr. Roland went, as he always went, briskly 
but deliberately downstairs. If he had ever run 
up and down at any period of his life, taking two 
steps at a time, as young men do, he did it no 
longer. He was a little short-sighted, and wore 
a “ pincenez,” and was never sure that between 
his natural eyes, with which he looked straight 
down at his feet, and his artificial ones, which had 
a wider circle, he might not miss a step, which 
accounted for the careful, yet rapid character of 
his movements. The door which Miss Bethune 
waited to hear him close was exactly below her 
own, and the room filled in Dr. Roland’s life the 
conjoint positions of waiting-room, dining-room. 


52 A House in Bloomsbury. 

and library. His consulting-room was formed of 
the other half looking to the back, and shut off 
from this by folding-doors and closely-drawn 
curtains. All the piles of Ilbistrated News, 
Graphic, and other picture papers, along with 
various well-thumbed pictorial volumes, the natu¬ 
ral embellishments of the waiting-room, were 
carefully cleared away; and the room, with Dr. 
Roland’s chair drawn near a cheery blazing fire, 
his reading-lamp, his book, and his evening paper 
on his table, looked comfortable enough. It was 
quite an ordinary room in Bloomsbury, and he 
was quite an ordinary man. Nothing remarkable 
(the reader will be glad to hear) had ever hap¬ 
pened to him. He had gone through the usual 
studies, he had knocked about the world for a 
number of years, he had seen life and many 
incidents in other people’s stories both at home 
and abroad. But nothing particular had ever 
happened to himself. He had lived, but if he had 
loved, nobody knew anything about that. He 
had settled in Bloomsbury some four or five years 
before, and he had grown into a steady, not too 
overwhelming practice. His specialty was the 
treatment of dyspepsia, and other evils of a seden¬ 
tary life; and his patients were chiefly men, the 
men of offices and museums, among whom he 
had a great reputation. This was his official 
character, not much of a family adviser, but 
strong to rout the liver fiend and the demons of 
indigestion wherever encountered. But in his 
private capacity Dr. Roland’s character was very 
remarkable and his scientific enthusiasm great. 


A House in Bloomsbwy. 53 

He was a sort of medical detective, working 
all for love, and nothing for reward, without fee, 
and in many cases without even the high pleasure 
of carrying out his views. He had the eye of a 
hawk for anything wrong in the complexion or 
aspect of those who fell under his observation. 
The very postman at the door, whom Dr. Roland 
had met two or three times as he went out for his 
constitutional in the morning, had been divined 
and cut open, as it were, by his lancet of a glance, 
and saved from a bad illness by the peremptory 
directions given to him, which the man had the 
sense (and the prudence, for it was near Christ¬ 
mas) to obey. In that case the gratuity passed 
from doctor to patient, not from patient to doctor, 
but was not perhaps less satisfactory on that ac¬ 
count. Then Dr. Roland would seize Jenny or 
Molly by the shoulders when they timidly 
brought a message or a letter into his room, look 
into the blue of their eyes for a moment, and 
order a dose on the spot; a practice which made 
these innocent victims tremble even to pass his 
door. 

“ Oh, granny, I can’t, I can’t take it up to the 
doctor,” they would say, even when it was a tele¬ 
gram that had come: little selfish things, not 
thinking what poor sick person might be sending 
for the doctor ; nor how good it was to be able to 
get a dose for nothing every time you wanted it. 

But most of the people whom he met 
were less easily manageable than the postman 
and the landlady’s little granddaughters. Dr. 
Roland regarded every one he saw from this 


54 A Hotise in Bloomsbury. 

same medical point of view; and had made up his 
mind about Miss Bethune, and also about Mr. 
Mannering, before he had been a week in the 
house. Unfortunately, he could do nothing to 
impress his opinion upon them ; but he kept his 
eyes very wide open, and took notes, attending 
the moment w^hen perhaps his opportunity might 
occur. As for Dora, he had nothing but con¬ 
tempt for her from the first moment he had seen 
her. Hers was a case of inveterate good health, 
and wholly without interest. That girl, he de¬ 
clared to himself scornfully, would be well any¬ 
where. Bloomsbury had no effect upon her. 
She was neither anaemic or dyspeptic, though the 
little things downstairs were both. But her 
father was a different matter. Half a dozen play¬ 
ful demons were skirmishing around that careful, 
temperate, well-living man; and Dr. Roland took 
the greatest interest in their advances and with¬ 
drawals, expecting the day when one or other 
would seize the patient and lay him low. Miss 
Bethune, too, had her little band of assailants, who 
were equally interesting to Dr. Roland, but not 
equally clear, since he was as yet quite in the 
dark as to the moral side of the question in her 
case. 

He knew what would happen to these two, 
and calculated their chances with great precision, 
taking into account all the circumstances that 
might defer or accelerate the catastrophe. These 
observations interested him like a play. It was 
a kind of second sight that he possessed, but 
reaching much further than the vision of any 


55 


A House in Bloomsbury, 

Highland seer, who sees the winding-sheet only 
when it is very near, mounting in a day or two 
from the knees to the waist, and hence to the 
head. But Dr. Roland saw its shadow long before 
it could have been visible to any person gifted 
with the second sight. Sometimes he was wrong 
—he had acknowledged as much to himself in one 
or two instances; but it was very seldom that this 
occurred. Those who take a pessimistic view 
either of the body or soul are bound to be right 
in many, if not in most cases, we are obliged to 
allow. 

But it was not with the design of hunting 
patients that Dr Roland made these investiga¬ 
tions ; his interest in the persons he saw around 
him was purely scientific. It diverted him greatly, 
if such a word may be used, to see how they met 
their particular dangers, whether they instinctively 
avoided or rushed to encounter them, both which 
methods they constantly employed in their uncon¬ 
sciousness. He liked to note the accidents (so 
called) that came in to stave off or to hurry on 
the approaching trouble. The persons to whom 
these occurred had often no knowledge of them ; 
but Dr. Roland noted everything and forgot 
nothing. He had a wonderful memory as well 
as such excessively clear sight; and he carried on, 
as circumstances permitted, a sort of oversight of 
the case, even if it might be in somebody else s 
hands. Sometimes his interest in these outlying 
patients who were not his, interfered with the 
concentration of his attention on those who were 
— who were chiefly, as has been said, dyspeptics 


56 A House in Bloomsbury. 

and the like, affording no exciting variety of 
symptoms to his keen intellectual and professional 
curiosity. And these peculiarities made him a 
very serviceable neighbour. He never objected 
to be called in in haste, because he was the near¬ 
est doctor, or to give a flying piece of advice 
to any one who might be attacked by sudden pain 
or uneasiness ; indeed, he might be said to like 
these unintentional interferences with other 
people’s work, which afforded him increased 
means of observation, and the privilege of launch¬ 
ing a new prescription at a patient’s head by way 
of experiment, or confidential counsel at the pro¬ 
fessional brother whom he was thus accidentally 
called upon to aid. 

On the particular evening which he occupied 
by telling Miss Bethune the story of the Manner- 
ings,—not without an object in so doing, for he 
had a strong desire to put that lady herself under 
his microscope and find out how certain things 
affected her,—he had scarcely got himself com¬ 
fortably established by his own fireside, put on a 
piece of wood to make a blaze, felt for his cigar- 
case upon the mantelpiece, and taken up his 
paper, when a knock at his door roused him in 
the midst of his preparations for comfort. The 
doctor lifted his head quickly, and cocked one 
fine ear like a dog, and with something of the 
thrill of listening with which a dog responds to 
any sound. That he let the knock be repeated 
was by no means to say that he had not heard 
the first time. A knock at his door was some¬ 
thing like a first statement of symptoms to the 


A House in Bloomshiry, 57 

doctor. He liked to understand and make 
certain what it meant. 

“Come in,” he said quickly, after the second 
knock, which had a little hurry and temerity in it 
after the tremulous sound of the first. 

The door opened; and there appeared at it, 
flushed with fright and alarm, yet pallid under¬ 
neath the flush, the young and comely counten¬ 
ance of Mrs. Hesketh, Dora’s friend on the attic 
floor. 

“Oh!” Dr. Roland said, taking in this un¬ 
expected appearance, and all her circumstances, 
physical and mental, at a glance. He had met 
her also more than once at the door or on the 
stairs. He asked kindly what was the little fool 
frightened about, as he rose up quickly and with 
unconscious use and wont placed a chair in the 
best light, where he should be able to read the 
simple little alphabet of her constitution and 
thoughts. 

“Oh, doctor, sir! I hope you don’t mind me 
coming to disturb you, though I know as it’s late 
and past hours.” 

“ A doctor has no hours. Come in,’^ he said. 

Then there was a pause. The agitated young 
face disappeared, leaving Dr. Roland only a side 
view of her shoulder and figure in profile, and a 
whispering ensued. “ I cannot—I cannot! I 
ain’t fit,” in a hoarse tone, and then the young 
woman’s eager pleading. “ Oh, Alfred dear, for 
my sake! ” 

“ Come in, whoever it is,” said Dr. Roland, 
with authority. “ A doctor has no hours, but 


58 A Ho2ise in Bloomsbury. 

other people in the house have, and you mustn’t 
stay outside.” 

Then there was a little dragging on the part 
of the wife, a little resistance on the part of the 
husband; and finally Mrs. Hesketh appeared, 
more flushed than ever, grasping the sleeve of 
a rather unwholesome-looking young man, very 
pink all over and moist, with furtive eyes, and hair 
standing on end. He had a fluttered clandestine 
look, as if afraid to be seen, as he came into the 
full light of the lamp, and looked suspiciously 
around him, as if to find out whether anything 
dangerous was there. 

“ It is my ’usband, sir,” said Mrs. Hesketh. 

It’s Alfred. He’s been off his food and off his 
sleep for I don’t know how long, and I’m not 
happy about him. I thought perhaps you might 
give him a something that would put him all 
straight.” 

“ Off his food and off his sleep ? Perhaps he 
hasn’t been off his drink also ” said the doctor, 
giving a touch to the shade of the lamp. 

“ I knew,” said the young man, in the same 
partially hoarse voice, “ as that is what would be 
said.” 

“And a gentleman like you ought to know 
better,” said the indignant wife. “ Drink is what 
he never touches, if it isn’t a ’alf pint to his 
supper, and that only to please me.” 

“Then it’s something else, and not drink,” 
said the doctor. “ Sit down, and let me have a 
look at you.” He took into his cool grasp a 
somewhat tremulous damp hand, which had been 


A House in Bloomsbury. 59 

hanging down by the patient’s side, limp yet 
agitated, like a thing he had no use for. “Tell 
me something about him,” said Dr. Roland. ‘‘ In 
a shop ? Baxter’s —yes, I know the place. 
What you call shopman,—no, assistant,—young 
gentleman at the counter ” 

“ Oh, no,” said Mrs. Hesketh, with pride; 
“ book-keeper, sir—sits up in his desk in the 

middle of the costume department, and-” 

“Ah, I see,” said the doctor quickly. He 
gave the limp wrist, in which the pulse had 
suddenly given a great jump, a grip with his cool 
hand. “ Control yourself,” he said quietly. 
“ Nerves'all in a whirl, system breaking down— 
can you take a holiday ? ” 

“ Oh, yes,” said the young man in a sort of 
bravado, “ of course I can take a holiday ! and an 
express ticket for the workhouse after it. How 
are we to live if I go taking holidays? We can’t 
afford no holidays,” he said in his gruff voice. 

“There are worse places than the workhouse,’' 
said the doctor, with meaning. “Take this, and 
to-morrow I’ll give you a note to send to your 
master. The first thing you want is a good 
night’s sleep.” 

“ Oh, that is the truth, however you know it,” 
cried Mrs. Hesketh. “He hasn't had a night's 
sleep, nor me neither, not for a month back.” 

“ ril see that he has one to-night,” said Dr. 
Roland, drawing back the curtain of his surgery 
and opening the folding-doors. 

“ I won't take no opiates, doctor,’' said the 
young man, with dumb defiance in his sleepy eyes. 



6 o A House in Bloomsbury, 

“You won’t take any opiates? And why, if 
I may ask?” the doctor said, selecting a bottle 
from the shelf. 

“Not a drop of your nasty sleepy stuff, that 
makes fellows dream and talk nonsense in their 
sleep—oh, not for me ! ” 

“ You are afraid, then, of talking nonsense in 
your sleep? We must get rid of the nonsense, 
not of the sleep,” said the doctor. “ I don’t say 
that this is an opiate, but you have got to swallow 
it, my fine fellow, whether or not.” 

“No,” said the young man, setting his lips 
firmly together. 

“ Drink! ” cried Dr. Roland, fully roused. 
“ Come, I’ll have no childish, wry faces. Why, 
you’re a man—with a wife—and not a naughty 
boy ! ” 

“It’s not my doing coming here. She brought 
me, and I’ll see her far enough-” 

“ Hold your tongue you young ass, and take 
your physic! She’s a capital woman, and has 
done exactly as she ought to have done. No 
nonsense, I tell you! Sleep to-night, and then 
to-morrow you’ll go and set yourself right with 
the shop.” 

“Sir!” cried the young man, with a gasp. 
His pulse gave a jump under the strong cool grip 
ill which Dr. Roland had again taken it, and he 
fixed a frightened imploring gaze upon the doctor’s 
face. 

“ Oh, doctor ! ” cried the poor wife, “ there’s 
nothing to set right with the shop. They think 
all the world of Alfred there.” 


A House in Bloomsbury. 6i 

“ They’ll think all the more of him,” said Dr. 
Roland, “ after he has had a good night’s sleep. 
There, take him off to bed ; and at ten o’clock 
to-morrow morning I expect to see him here.” 

‘‘ Oh, doctor, is it anything bad ? Oh, sir, can’t 
you make him all right ? ” she cried, standing with 
clasped hands, listening to the hurried yet wavering 
step with which her husband went upstairs. 

“ I’ll tell you to-morrow morning,” Dr. Roland 
said. 

When the door was closed he went and sat 
down again by his fire; but the calm of his mind, 
the pleasure of his cigar, the excitement of his 
newspaper, had gone. Truth to tell, the excite¬ 
ment of this new question pleased him more than 
all these things together. “Has he done it, or is 
he only going to do it ? ” he asked himself. Could 
the thing be set right, or could it never be set 
right? He sat there for perhaps an hour, work¬ 
ing out the question in both directions, consider¬ 
ing the case in every light. It was a long time 
since he had met with anything so interesting. 
He only came to himself when he became con¬ 
scious that the fire was burning very low, and the 
chill of the night creeping into the air. Then 
Dr. Roland rose again, compounded a drink for 
himself of a different quality from that which he 
had given to his patient, and selected out of his 
bookcase a yellow novel. But after a while he 
pitched the book from him, and pushed away the 
glass, and resumed his meditations. What was 
grog, and what was Gaboriau, in comparison with 
a problem like this ? 


CHAPTER VI. 


The house in Bloomsbury was, however, much 
more deeply troubled and excited than it would 
have been by anything affecting Alfred Hesketh, 
when it was known next morning that Mr. Man- 
nering had been taken ill in the night, and was 
now unable to leave his bed. The doctor had 
been sent for early—alas! it was not Dr. Roland 
—and the whole household was disturbed. Such 
a thing had not been known for nearly a dozen 
years past, as that Mr. Mannering should not walk 
downstairs exactly at a quarter before ten, and 
close the door behind him, forming a sort of fourth 
chime to the three-quarters as they sounded from 
the church clock. The house was put out for the 
day by this failure in the regularity of its life and 
movement; all the more that it was very soon 
known that this prop of the establishment was 
very ill, that “the fever” ran very high, and that 
even his life was in danger. Nobody made much 
remark in these circumstances upon the disap¬ 
pearance of the humble little people on the upper 
floor, who, after much coming and going between 
their habitation and that of Dr. Roland down¬ 
stairs, made a hurried departure, providentially, 
Mrs. Simcox said—thus leaving a little available 
room for the nurse who by this time had taken 
possession of the Mannering establishment, re- 
(62) 


A House m Bloomsbury, 63 

ducing Dora to the position which she had never 
occupied, of a child, and taking the management 
of everything. Two of these persons, indeed, 
had been ordered in by the doctor—a nurse for 
the day, and a nurse for the night, who filled the 
house with that air of redundant health and cheer¬ 
fulness which seem to belong to nurses, one or 
other of them being always met on the stairs 
going out for her constitutional, going down for 
her meals, taking care of herself in some method¬ 
ical way or other, according to prescription, that 
she might be fit for her work. And no doubt they 
were very fit for their work, and amply responded 
to the confidence placed in them : which was only 
not shared by Dora, banished by them out of 
her fathers room—and Miss Bethune, a woman 
full of prejudices, and Gilchrist, whose soft heart 
could not resist the cheerful looks of the two fresh 
young women, though their light-heartedness 
shocked her a little, and the wrongs of Dora filled 
her heart with sympathy. 

Alas ! Dora was not yet sixteen—there was 
no possibility, however carefully you counted the 
months, and showed her birthday to be approach¬ 
ing, to get over that fact. And what were her 
love and anxious desire to be of service, and 
devotion to her father, in comparison with these 
few years and the superior training of the women, 
who knew almost as much as the doctor himself.^ 
“Not saying much, that!” Dr. Roland grumbled 
under his breath, as he joined the anxious circle of 
malcontents in Miss Bethune s apartment, where 
Dora came, trying proudly to restrain her tears. 


64 A House in Bloomsbury, 

and telling how she had been shut out of Mr. 
Mannering’s room—“ my own father’s room ! ” the 
girl cried in her indignation, two big drops, like 
raindrops, falling, in spite of her, upon her dress. 

It’s better for you, my bonnie dear,—oh, it’s 
better for you,” Gilchrist whispered, standing 
behind her, and drying her own flowing eyes with 
her apron. 

“Dora, my darling,” said Miss Bethune, moved 
to a warmth of spirit quite unusual to her, “it is 
quite true what Gilchrist says. I am not fond of 
these women myself. They shall never nurse 
me. If I cannot have a hand that cares for me 
to smooth my pillow, it shall be left unsmoothed, 
and none of these good-looking hussies shall smile 
over me when I’m dying—no, no! But it is 
different; you’re far too young to have that on 
your head. I would not permit it. Gilchrist and 
me would have taken it and done every justice to 
your poor papa, I make no doubt, and been all the 
better for the work, two idle women as we are— 
but not you. You should have come and gone, 
and sat by his bedside and cheered him with the 
sight of you; but to nurse him was beyond your 
power. Ask the doctor, and he will tell you that 
as well as me.” 

“ I have always taken care of my father be¬ 
fore,” said Dora. “When he has had his colds, 

and when he had rheumatism, and v/hen-that 

time. Dr. Roland, you know.” 

“That was the time,” said the doctor, “when 
you ran down to me in the middle of the night 
and burst into my room, like a wise little girl. 



A House in Bloo^nsbury. 65 

We had him in our own hands then, and we knew 
what to do with him, Dora. But here’s Vereker, 
he’s a great swell, and neither you nor I can 
interfere.” 

It comforted Dora a little to have Dr. Roland 
placed with herself among the outsiders who could 
not interfere, especially when Miss Bethune 
added : “That is just the grievance. We would all 
like to have a finger in the pie. Why should a 
man be taken out of the care of his natural friends 
and given into the charge of these women, that 
never saw him in their lives before, nor care 
whether he lives or dies ? ” 

“ Oh, they care—for their own reputation. 
There is nothing to be said against the women, 
they’ll do their duty,” said the doctor. “ But 
there’s Vereker, that has never studied his con¬ 
stitution—that sees just the present symptoms, 
and no more. Take the child out for a walk, 
Miss Bethune, and let’s have her fresh and fair 
for him, at least, if”—the doctor pulled himself 
up hastily, and coughed to swallow the last alarm¬ 
ing syllable,—“ fresh and fair,” he added hastily, 
“ when he gets better, which is a period with 
which no nurses can interfere.” 

A colloquy, which was silent yet full of eager 
interest and feeling, sprang up between two pairs 
of eyes at the moment that alarming of 

conjectures—was uttered. Miss Bethune ques¬ 
tioned ; the doctor replied. Then he said in an 
undertone : “ A constitution never very strong,— 
exhausting work, exhausting emotions, unnatural 
peace in the latter life”. 

5 


66 A House in Bloomsbury. 

Dora was being led away by Gilchrist to get 
her hat for the proposed walk; and Dr. Roland 
ended in his ordinary voice. 

“ Do you call that unnatural peace, with all 
the right circumstances of his life round him, and 
—and full possession of his bonnie girl, that has 
never been parted from him.^ I don’t call that 
unnatural.” 

“You would if you were aware of the other 
side of it lopped off—one half of him, as it were, 
paralysed.” 

Doctor,” said Miss Bethune, with a curious 
smile, “ I ought to take that as a compliment to 
my sex, as the fools say—if I cared a button for 
my sex or any such nonsense! But there is 
yourself, now, gets on very well, so far as I can 
see, with that side, as you call it, just as much 
lopped off.” 

‘‘How do you know?” said the doctor. “I 
may be letting concealment, like a worm in the 
bud, feed on my damask cheek. But I allow,” 
he said, with a laugh, “I do get on very well: 
and so, if you will permit me to say it, do you. 
Miss Bethune. But then, you see, we have 
never known anything else.” 

Something leaped up in Miss Bethune’s eye— 
a strange light, which the doctor could not inter¬ 
pret, though it did not escape his observation. 
“To be sure,” she said, nodding her head, “we 
have never known anything else. And that 
changes the case altogether.” 

“That changes the case. I say nothing 
against a celibate life. I have always preferred 


A House in Bloomsbury. 67 

it—it suits me better. I never cared,’’ he added, 
again with a laugh, “ to have too much baggage 
to move about.” 

“ Do not be uncivil, doctor, after being more 
civil than was necessary.” 

But it’s altogether a different case with poor 
Mannering. It is not even as if his wife had 
betrayed him—in the ordinary way. The poor 
thing meant no harm.” 

“Oh, do not speak to me!” cried Miss 
Bethune, throwing up her hands. 

“ I know; it is well known you ladies are 
always more severe—but, anyhow, that side was 
wrenched away in a moment, and then there 
followed long years of unnatural calm.” 

“ I do not agree with you, doctor,” she said, 
shaking her head. “ The wrench was defeeni- 
tive.” Miss Bethune’s nationality betrayed itself 
in a great breadth of vowels, as well as in here 
and there a word or two. “It was a cut like 
death : and you do not call calm unnatural that 
comes after death, after long years } ” 

“ It’s different—it’s different,” the doctor said. 

“ Ay, so it is,” she said, answering as it were 
her own question. 

And there was a pause. When two persons 
of middle age discuss such questions, there is a 
world lying behind each full of experiences, which 
they recognise instinctively, however completely 
unaware they may be of each other’s case. 

“But here is Dora ready for her walk, and 
me doing nothing but haver,” cried Miss Bethune, 
disappearing into the next room. 


68 A Hotise in Bloomsbury. 

They might have been mother and daughter 
going out together in the gentle tranquillity of use 
and wont,—so common a thing !—and yet if the 
two had been mother and daughter, what a revolu¬ 
tion in how many lives would have been made!— 
how different would the world have been for an 
entire circle of human souls ! They were, in fact, 
nothing to each other—brought together, as we 
say, by chance, and as likely to be whirled apart 
again by those giddy combinations and dissolutions 
which the head goes round only to think of. For 
the present they walked closely together side by 
side, and talked of one subject which engrossed all 
their thoughts. 

“ What does the doctor think ? Oh, tell me, 
please, what the doctor thinks ! ” 

‘‘ How can he think anything, Dora, my dear? 
He has never seen your father since he was taken 
ill.” 

“ Oh, Miss Bethune, but he knew him so well 
before. And I don’t ask you what he knows. He 
must think something. He must have an opinion. 
He always has an opinion, whatever case it may 
be.” 

“He thinks, my dear, that the fever must run 
its course. Now another week’s begun, we must 
just wait for the next critical moment. That is 
all, Dora, my darling, that is all that any man can 
say.” 

“Oh, that it would only come!” cried Dora 
passionately. “There is nothing so dreadful as 
waiting—nothing! However bad a thing is, if 
you only know it, not hanging always in suspense.” 


A House in Bloomsbury, 69 

‘‘ Suspense means hope; it means possibility, 
and life, and all that makes life sweet. Be patient, 
be patient, my bonnie dear.” 

Dora looked up into her friend’s face. “ Were 
you ever as miserable as I am ?” she said. Miss 
Bethune was thought grim by her acquaintances, 
and there was a hardness in her, as those who 
knew her best were well aware; but at this question 
something ineffable came into her face. Her eyes 
filled with tears, her lips quivered with a smile. 
“ My little child ! ” she said. 

Dora did not ask any more. Her soul was 
silenced in spite of herself: and just then there 
arose a new interest, which is always so good a thing 
for everybody, especially at sixteen. “There,” 
she cried, in spite of herself, though she had 
thought she was incapable of any other thought, 
“is poor Mrs. Hesketh hurrying along on the 
other side of the street.” 

They had got into a side street, along one end 
of which was a little row of trees. 

“ Oh, run and speak to her, Dora.” 

Mrs. Hesketh seemed to feel that she was 
pursued. She quickened her step almost into a 
run, but she was breathless and agitated and laden 
with a bundle, and in no way capable of outstrip¬ 
ping Dora. She paused with a. gasp, when the 
girl laid a hand on her arm. 

“Didn’t you hear me call you? You surely 
could never, never mean to run away from me ? ” 

“Miss Dora, you were always so kind, but I 
didn’t know who it might be.” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Hesketh, you can’t know how ill 


70 A House in Bloomsbury, 

my father is, or you would have wanted to ask for 
him. He has been ill a month, and I am not 
allowed to nurse him. I am only allowed to go 
in and peep at him twice a day. I am not 
allowed to speak to him, or to do anything for 
him, or to know-” 

Dora paused, choked by the quick-coming 
tears. 

“ I am so sorry, miss. I thought as you were 
happy at least: but there’s nothing, nothing but 
trouble in this world,” cried Mrs. Hesketh, break¬ 
ing into a fitful kind of crying- Her face was 
flushed and heated, the bundle impeding all 
her movements. She looked round in alarm at 
every step, and when she saw Miss Bethune’s 
tall figure approaching, uttered a faint cry. “ Oh, 
Miss Dora, I can’t stay, and I can’t do you any 
good even if I could ; I’m wanted so bad at home.” 

“ Where are you going with that big bundle ? 
You are not fit to be carrying it about the 
streets,” said Miss Bethune, suddenly standing 
like a lion in the way. 

The poor little woman leant against a tree, 
supporting her bundle. “ Oh, please,” she said, 
imploring; and then, with some attempt at self- 
defence, “ I am going nowhere but about my own 
business. I have got nothing but what belongs 
to me. Let me go.” 

“ You must not go any further than this spot,” 
said Miss Bethune. “ Dora, go to the end of the 
road and get a cab. Whatever you would have 
got for that where you were going, I will give it 
you, and you can keep your poor bits of things. 



A House in Bloomsbury, 71 

What has happened to you? Quick, tell me, 
while the child’s away.” 

The poor young woman let her bundle fall 
at her feet. “ My husband’s ill, and he’s lost his 
situation,” she said, with piteous brevity, and 
sobbed, leaning against the tree. 

‘^And therefore you thought that was a fine 
time to run away and hide yourself among 
strangers, out of the reach of them that knew 
you ? There was the doctor, and there was me. 
Did you think we would let harm happen to you? 
You poor feckless little thing!” 

“The doctor! It was the doctor that lost 
Alfred his place,” cried the young woman angrily, 
drying her eyes. “ Let me go—oh, let me go! 
I don’t want no charity,” she said. 

“ And what would you have got for all that ? ” 

“ Perhaps ten shillings—perhaps only six. 
Oh, lady, you don’t know us except just to see 
us on the stairs. I’m in great trouble, and he’s 
heartbroken, and waiting for me at ’ome. Leave 
me alone and let me go.” 

“If you had put them away for ten shillings 
they would have been of no further use to you. 
Now, here’s ten shillings, and you’ll take these 
things back ; but you’ll mind that they’re mine, 
though I give you the use of them, and you’ll 
promise to come to me, or to send for me, and to 
take no other way. What is the matter with 
your husband ? Let him come to the doctor, and 
you to me.” 

“Oh, never, never, to that doctor!” Mrs. 
Hesketh cried. 


72 A House m Bloo 77 tsbury, 

“ The doctor s a good man, and everybody’s 
friend, but he may have a rough tongue, I would 
not say. But come you to me. We’ll get him 
another place, and all will go well. You silly 
little thing, the first time trouble comes in your 
way, to fall into despair! Oh, this is you, Dora, 
with the cab. Put in the bundle. And now, 
here’s the money, and if you do not come to me, 
mind you will have broken your word.” 

“ Oh, ma’am ! Oh, Miss Dora ! ” was all the 
poor little woman could say. 

“ Now, Dora,” said Miss Bethune cheerfully, 
“ there’s something for you to do—Gilchrist and 
you. You’ll give an account to me of that poor 
thing, and if you let her slip through your fingers 
ril never forgive you. There’s something wrong. 
Perhaps he drinks, or perhaps he does something 
worse—if there’s anything worse : but whatever 
it is, it is your responsibility. Pm an idle, idle 
person ; Pm good for nothing. But you’re young, 
and Gilchrist’s a tower of strength, and you’ll 
just give an account of that poor bit creature, soul 
and body, to me.” 


CHAPTER VII. 

Mr. Mannering’s illness ran on and on. Week 
after week the anxious watchers waited for the 
crisis which did not come. It was evident now 
that the patient, who had no violence in his ill¬ 
ness any more than in his life, was yet not to be 
spared a day of its furthest length. But it was 
allowed that he had no bad symptoms, and that 
the whole matter turned on the question whether 
his strength could be sustained. Dr. Roland, 
not allowed to do anything else for his friend, 
regulated furtively the quality and quantity of the 
milk, enough to sustain a large nursery, which 
was sent upstairs. He tested it in every scientific 
way, and went himself from dairy to dairy to get 
what was best; and Mrs. Simcox complained 
bitterly that he was constantly making inroads 
into my kitchen ’’ to interfere in the manufacture 
of the beef tea. He even did, which was against 
every rule of medical etiquette, stop the great Dr. 
Vereker on the stairs and almost insist upon a 
medical consultation, and to give his own opinion 
about the patient to this great authority, who 
looked him over from the crown of his head to 
the sole of his foot with undisguised yet be¬ 
wildered contempt. Who was this man who 
discoursed to the great physician about the ten¬ 
dencies and the idiosyncrasies of the sick man, 
( 73 ) 


74 ^ House in Bloomsbury, 

whom it was a matter of something like conde¬ 
scension on Dr. Vereker’s part to attend at all, 
and whom this little person evidently believed 
himself to understand better 

“If Mr. Mannering’s friends wish me to meet 
you in consultation, I can have, of course, no ob¬ 
jection to satisfy them, or even to leave the further 
conduct of the case in your hands,” he said stiffly. 

“ Nothing of the kind—nothing of the kind ! ” 
cried poor Dr. Roland. “ It’s only that I’ve 
watched the man for years. You perhaps don’t 
know-” 

“I think,” said Dr. Vereker, “you will allow 
that after nearly six weeks’ attendance I ought, 
unless I am an ignoramus, to know all there is to 
know.” 

“ I don’t deny it for a moment. There is no 
practitioner in London certainly who would doubt 
Dr. Vereker’s knowledge. I mean his past— 
what he has had to bear—the things that have 
led up-” 

“Moral causes?” said the great physician 
blandly, raising his eyebrows. “My dear sir, 
depend upon it, a bad drain is more to be reck¬ 
oned with than all the tragedies of the world.” 

“ I shall not depend on anything of the kind! ” 
cried Dr. Roland, almost dancing with impatience. 

“Then you will permit me to say good-morn¬ 
ing, for my time is precious,” answered his distin¬ 
guished brother—“unless,” he added sarcastically, 
pausing to look round upon the poor doctor’s 
sitting-room, then arrayed in its morning guise 
as waiting-room, with all the old Graphics, and 




A House in Bloomsbury, 75 

picture books laid out upon the table—'‘Mr. 
Mannering’s friends are dissatisfied and wish to 
put the case in your hands ? ” 

“ Do you know who Mr. Mannering’s friends 
are.^” cried Dr. Roland. “Little Dora, his only 
child! I know no others. J ust about as little 
influential as are those moral causes you scorn, 
but I don’t.” 

“Indeed!” said Dr. Vereker, with more con¬ 
sideration of this last statement Little Dora was 
not much of a person to look to for the rapidly 
accumulating fees of a celebrated doctor during a 
long illness. But though he was a prudent man, 
he was not mercenary; perhaps he would have 
hesitated about taking up the case had he known 
at first, but he was not the man to retire now out 
of any fear of being paid. “ Mr. Mannering is a 
person of distinction,” he said, in a self-reassuring 
tone; “ he has been my patient at long intervals 
for many years. I don’t think we require to go 
into the question further at this moment.” He 
withdrew with great dignity to the carriage that 
awaited him, crossing one or two of Dr. Roland’s 
patients, whose appearance somewhat changed his 
idea of the little practitioner who had thus ven¬ 
tured to assail him; while, on the other hand, 
Roland for his part was mollified by the other’s 
magnanimous reception of a statement which 
seemed to make his fees uncertain. Dr. Vereker 
was not in the least a mercenary man, he would 
never have overwhelmed an orphan girl with a 
great bill: at the same time, it did float across his 
mind that if the crisis were once over which pro- 


76 A House in Bloojnsbury. 

fessional spirit and honour compelled him to con¬ 
duct to a good end if possible, a little carelessness 
about his visits after could have no bad result, 
considering the constant vicinity of that very keen¬ 
eyed practitioner downstairs. 

A great doctor and two nurses, unlimited 
supplies of fresh milk, strong soup, and every 
appliance that could be thought of to alleviate and 
console the patient, by these professional persons 
of the highest class, accustomed to spare no ex-- 
pense, are, however, things that do not agree 
with limited means; and Dora, the only authority 
on the subject, knew nothing about her father’s 
money, or how to get command of it. Mrs. 
Simcox’s bills were very large in the present 
position of affairs, the rooms that had been occu¬ 
pied by the Heskeths being now appropriated to 
the nurses, for whom the landlady furnished a 
table more plentiful than that to which Mr. Man- 
nering and his daughter had been accustomed. 
And when the crisis at last arrived, in the middle 
of a tardy and backward June, the affairs of the 
little household, even had there been any com¬ 
petent person to understand them, were in a very 
unsatisfactory state indeed—a state over which 
Dr. Roland and Miss Bethune consulted in the 
evenings with many troubled looks, and shakings 
of the head. She had taken all the necessary 
outgoings in hand, for the moment as she said ; 
and Miss Bethune was known to be well off But 
the prospect was rather serious, and neither of 
them knew how to interfere in the sick man’s 
money matters, or to claim what might be owing 


A House in Bloomsbury, 77 

to him, though, indeed, there was probably 
nothing owing to him until quarter day: and 
there were a number of letters lying unopened 
which, to experienced eyes, looked painfully like 
bills, as if quarter day would not have enough to 
do to provide for its own things without respond¬ 
ing to this unexpected strain. Dora knew no¬ 
thing about these matters. She recognised the 
letters with the frankest acquaintance. They 
were from old book shops, from scientific work¬ 
men who mounted and prepared specimens, from 
dealers in microscopes and other delicate instru¬ 
ments. “ Father says these are our dressmakers, 
and carriages, and parties,” said Dora, half, or 
indeed wholly, proud of such a distinction above 
her fellows. 

Miss Bethune shook her head and said, “Such 
extravagance!” in Dr. Roland’s ear. He was 
more tolerant. They are all the pleasures the 
poor man has,” he said. But they did not make 
the problem more easy as to how the present 
expenses were to be met when the quarter’s pay 
came in, even if it could be made available by 
Dora’s only friends, who were “ no relations,” and 
had no right to act for her. Miss Bethune went 
through a great many abstruse calculations in the 
mornings which she spent alone. She was well 
off,—but that is a phrase which means little or 
much, according to circumstances ; and she had a 
great many pensioners, and already carried a little 
world on her shoulders, to which she had lately 
added the unfortunate little Mrs. Hesketh, and 
the husband, who found it so difficult to get another 


78 A House in Bloomsbury, 

place. Many cares of a similar kind were on this 
lady’s head. She never gave a single subscription 
to any of the societies : collectors for charities called 
on her in vain ; but to see the little jottings of 
her expenses would have been a thing not with¬ 
out edification for those who could understand the 
cipher, or, rather, the combination of undecipher¬ 
able initials, in which they were set down. She 
did not put M. for Mannering in her accounts ; 
but there were a great many items under the 
initial W., which no one but herself could ever 
have identified, which made it quite sure that no 
stranger going over these accounts could make 
out who Miss Bethune’s friends were. She shook 
her head over that W. If Dora were left alone, 
what relics would there be for her out of the 
future quarter’s pay, so dreadfully forestalled, even 
if the pay did not come to a sudden stop at once.^ 
And, on the other hand, if the poor man got 
better, and had to face a long convalescence with 
that distracting prospect before him, no neighbour 
any longer daring to pay those expenses which 
would be quite as necessary for him in his weak 
state as they were now Miss Bethune could do 
nothing but shake her head, and feel her heart 
contract with that pang of painful pity in which 
there is no comfort at all. And in the meantime 
everything went on as if poor Mannering were 
a millionaire, everything was ordered for him 
with a free hand which a prince could have had; 
and Mrs. Simcox excelled herself in making the 
nurses, poor things, comfortable. What could 
any one do to limit this full flowing tide of liber- 


A House in Bloomsbury. 79 

ality ? Of course, he must have everything that 
could possibly be wanted for him; if he did not 
use it, at least it must be there in case he might 
use it. What could people who were “no rela¬ 
tions ” do ? What could Dora do, who was only a 
child ? And indeed, for the matter of that, what 
could any one, even in the fullest authority, have 
done to hinder the sick man from having any¬ 
thing which by the remotest possibility might be of 
use to him ? Thus affairs went on wdth a dreadful 
velocity, and accumulation of wrath against the day 
of wrath. 

That was a dreadful day, the end of the sixth 
week, the moment when the crisis must come. 
It was in the June evening, still daylight, but 
getting late, when the doctor arrived. Mr. Man- 
nering had been very ill all day, sleeping, or in 
a state of stupor nearly all the time, moving his 
head uneasily on his pillow, but never rousing 
to any consciousness of what was going on about 
him. The nurses, always cheerful, did not, how¬ 
ever, conceal their apprehensions. He had taken 
his beef tea, he had taken the milk which they 
poured down his throat: but his strength was 
gone, and he lay with no longer any power to 
struggle, like a forsaken boat on the sea margin, 
to be drifted off or on the beach according to the 
pleasure of wind and tide. 

Miss Bethune sat in her room holding Dora’s 
hand, who, however, did not realise that this was 
more important than any of the other days on which 
they had hoped that “ the turn” might come, and 
a little impatient of the seriousness of the elder 


8 o A House in Bloomsbury, 

woman, who kept on saying tender words to her, 
caressing her hand,—so unnecessarily emotional, 
Dora thought, seeing that at all events it was not 
her father who was ill, and she had no reason to 
be so unhappy about it. This state of excitement 
was brought to a climax by the sound of the 
doctor’s steps going upstairs, followed close by the 
lighter step of Dr. Roland, whom no etiquette 
could now restrain, who followed into the very 
room, and if he did not give an opinion in words, 
gave it with his eyes, and saw, even more quickly 
than the great Dr. Vereker, everything that was 
to be seen. It was he who came down a few 
minutes later, while they were both listening for 
the more solemn movements of the greater 
authority, descending with a rush like that of a 
bird, scarcely touching the steps, and standing in 
the last sunset light which came from the long 
staircase window behind, like something glorified 
and half angelic, as if his house coat, glazed at the 
shoulders and elbows, had been some sort of 
shining mail. 

Tears were in Dr. Roland’s eyes ; he waved 
his hand over his head and broke forth into a 
broken hurrah. Miss Bethune sprang up to meet 
him, holding out her hands. And in the sight of 
stern youth utterly astonished by this exhifition, 
these two elderly people as good as rushed into 
each other’s arms. 

Dora was so astounded, so disapproving, so 
little aware that this was her last chance for her 
father’s life, that she almost forgot her father in 
the consternation, shame, and horror with which 


A House in Bloomsbury, 8i 

she looked on. What did they mean ? It could 
not have anything to do with her father, of whom 
they were “no relations”. How dared they to 
bring in their own silly affairs when she was in 
such trouble ? And then Miss Bethune caught 
herself, Dora, in her arms. 

“What is the matter.'^” cried the girl. “Oh, 
let me alone! I can think of nothing but father 
and Dr. Vereker, who is upstairs.” 

“ It is all right—it is all right,” said Dr. 
Roland. “ Vereker will take half an hour more 
to make up his mind. But I can tell you at once; 
the fevers gone, and, please God, he’ll pull 
through.” 

“ Is it only you that says so. Dr. Roland ? ” cried 
Dora, hard as the nether millstone, and careless, 
indeed unconscious, what wound she might give. 

“You little ungrateful thing!” cried Miss 
Bethune; but a shadow came over her eyes also. 
And the poor practitioner from the ground floor 
felt that “only you” knock him down like a stone. 
He gave a laugh, and made no further reply, but 
walked over to the window, where he stood 
between the curtains, looking out upon the 
summer evening, the children playing on the 
pavement, all the noises and humours of the street. 
No, he had not made a name for himself, he had 
not secured the position of a man who has life 
and death in his nod. It was hard upon Dr. 
Roland, who felt that he knew far more about 
Mr. Mannering than half a hundred great phy¬ 
sicians rolled into one, coming in with his solemn 
step at the open door. 


6 


82 A Hotise in Bloomsbury, 

“ Yes, I think he will do,” said Dr. Vereker. 
“ Miss Mannering, I cannot sufficiently recom¬ 
mend you to leave everything in the hands of 
these two admirable women. It will be anxious 
work for some time yet; his strength is reduced 
to the very lowest ebb, but yet, I hope, all will 
come right. The same strenuous skilful nursing 
and constant judicious nourishment and rest. 
This young lady is very young to have such an 
anxiety. Is there really no one—no relation, no 
uncle—nor anything of that kind ” 

“We have no relations,” said Dora, growing 
very red. There seemed a sort of guilt in the 
avowal, she could not tell v/hy. 

But fast friends,” said Miss Bethune. 

“Ah, friends! Friends are very good to 
comfort and talk to a poor little girl, but they are 
not responsible. They cannot be applied to for 
fees ; whereas an uncle, though perhaps not so 

good for the child-” Dr. Vereker turned to 

Dr. Roland at the window. “ I may be pre¬ 
vented from coming to-morrow so soon as I 
should wish ; indeed, the patient should be looked 
at again to-night if I had time. But it is a long 
way to come back here. I am sure it will be a 
comfort to this young lady. Dr. Roland, if you, 
being on the spot, would kindly watch the case 
when I am not able to be here.” 

Dr. Roland cast but one glance at the doubt¬ 
ing spectators, who had said, “Only you”. 

“ With all my heart, and thank you for the 
confidence you put in me,” he said. 

“ Oh, that,” said the great doctor, with a wave 



A House m Bloomsbtiry. 83 

of his hand, “ is only your due. I have to thank 
you for one or two hints, and you know as well 
as I do what care is required now. We may con¬ 
gratulate ourselves that things are as they are ; 
but his life hangs on a thread. Thank you. I 
may rely upon you then ? Gopd-evening, madam ; 
forgive me for not knowing your name. Good¬ 
night, Miss Mannering.” 

Dr. Roland attended the great man to the 
door; and returned again, taking three steps at 
a time. “You see,” he cried breathlessly, “ I am 
in charge, though you don’t think much of me. 
He’s not a mercenary man, he has stayed to pull 
him through ; but we shan’t see much more of 
Dr. Vereker. There’s the fees saved at a stroke.” 

“And there’s the women,” said Miss Bethune 
eagerly, “taking real pleasure in it, and growing 
fatter and fairer every day.” 

“ The women have done very well,” said the 
doctor. “I’ll have nothing said against them. 
It’s they that have pulled him through.” Dr. 
Roland did not mean to share his triumph with 
any other voluntary aid. 

“Well, perhaps that is just,” she said, regret¬ 
fully ; “ but yet here is me and Gilchrist hunger¬ 
ing for something to do, and all the good pounds 
a week that might be so useful handed over to 
them.” 

Dora listened to all this, half indignant, half 
uncomprehending. She had a boundless scorn 
of the “good pounds” of which Miss Bethune in 
her Scotch phraseology spoke so tenderly. And 
she did not clearly understand why this particular 


84 A House m Bloomsbury. 

point in her father s illness should be so much 
more important than any other. She heard her 
own affairs discussed as through a haze, resenting 
that these other people should think they had so 
much to do with them, and but dimly understand¬ 
ing what they meant by it. Her father, indeed, 
did not seem to her any better at all, when she 
was allowed for a moment to see him as he lay 
asleep. But Dora, fortunately, thought nothing 
of the expenses, nor how the little money that 
came in at quarter day would melt away like 
snow, nor how the needs, now miraculously sup¬ 
plied as by the ravens, would look when the in¬ 
valid awoke to a consciousness of them, and of 
how they were to be provided in a more natural 
way. 

It was not very long, however, before some¬ 
thing of that consciousness awoke in the eyes of 
the patient, as he slowly came back into the at¬ 
mosphere of common life from which he had 
been abstracted so long. He was surprised to 
find Dr. Roland at his pillow, which that eager 
student would scarcely have left by day or night 
if he could have helped it, and the first glimmer¬ 
ing of anxiety about his ways and means came 
into his face when Roland explained hastily that 
Vereker came faithfully so long as there was any 
danger. “ But now he thinks a poor little practi¬ 
tioner like myself, being on the spot, will do,” he 
said, with a laugh. “Saves fees, don’t you 
know 1 ” 

“Fees?” poor Mannering said, with a be¬ 
wildered consciousness ; and next morning began 


A House in Bloomsbury. 85 

to ask when he could go back to the Museum. 
Fortunately, all ideas were dim in that floating 
weakness amid the sensations of a man coming 
back to life. Convalescence is sweet in youth; 
but it is not sweet when a man whose life is 
already waning comes back out of the utter 
prostration of disease into the lesser but more 
conscious ills of common existence. Presently he 
began to look at the luxuries with which he was 
surrounded, and the attendants who watched over 
him, with alarm. “ Look here, Roland, I can’t 
afford all this. You must put a stop to all this,” 
he said. 

“ We can’t be economical about getting well, 
my dear fellow,” said the doctor. “ That’s the 
last thing to save money on.” 

“ But I haven’t got it! One can’t spend 
what one hasn’t got,” cried the sick man. It is 
needless to say that his progress was retarded, 
and the indispensable economies postponed, by 
this new invasion of those cares which are to the 
mind what the drainage which Dr. Vereker alone 
believed in is to the body. 

“ Never mind, father,” Dora said in her ignor¬ 
ance ; “ it will all come right.” 

“ Right How is it to come right? Take 
that stuff away. Send' these nurses away. I 
can’t afford it. Do you hear me? I cannot 
afford it ! ” he began to cry night and day. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


Mr. Mannering’s convalescence was worse than 
his illness had been to the house in Bloomsbury. 
Mrs. Simcox’s weekly bill fell by chance into the 
patient’s hands, and its items filled him with 
horror. When a man is himself painfully sup¬ 
ported on cups of soup and wings of chicken, the 
details of roast lamb for the day-nurse’s dinner, 
and bacon and eggs for the night-nurse’s break¬ 
fast, take an exaggerated magnitude. And Mrs. 
Simcox was very conscientious, putting down 
even the parsley and the mint which were neces¬ 
sary for these meals. This bill put back the 
patient’s recovery for a week, and prolonged the 
expenses, and brought the whole house, as Mrs. 
Simcox declared tearfully, on her comparatively 
innocent head. 

“ For wherever’s the bill to go if not to the 
gentleman hisself.^” cried the poor woman. “He’s 
sittin’ up every day, and gettin’ on famous, by 
what I hears. And he always did like to see 
’is own bills, did Mr. Mannering: and what’s a 
little bit of a thing like Miss Dora to go to, to 
make her understand money ? Lord bless you! 
she don’t spend a shilling in a week, nor knows 
nothing about it. And the nurses, as was always 
to have everything comfortable, seeing the ’ard 
work as they ’as, poor things. And if it was a 
( 86 ) 


A House in Bloomsbury. 87 

bit o’ mint for sauce, or a leaf o’ parsley for 
garnish, I’d have put it in out o’ my own 
pocket and welcome, if I’d a thought a gentleman 
would go on about sich things.” 

“You ridiculous woman, why couldn’t you 
have brought it to me, as you have done before } 
And who do you suppose cares for your parsley 
and your mint?” cried Miss Bethune. But no¬ 
body knew better than Miss Bethune that the 
bills could not now be brought to her; and it was 
with a sore heart, and that sense of the utter 
impossibility of affording any help, with which we 
look on impotent at the troubles of our neighbours, 
whom we dare not offend even by our sympathy, 
that she went downstairs in a morning of July, 
when London was hot and stifling, yet still, as 
ever, a little grace and coolness dwelt in the 
morning, to refresh herself with a walk under the 
trees in the Square, to which she had a privilege 
of entrance. 

Even in London in the height of summer the 
morning is sweet. There is that sense of ease 
and lightness in it, which warm and tranquil 
weather brings, before it comes too hot to bear. 
There were smells in the streets in the afternoon, 
and the din of passing carts and carriages, of 
children playing, of street cries and shouts, which 
would sometimes become intolerable; but in the 
morning there was shade and softness, and a sense 
of trouble suspended for the moment or withdrawn, 
which often follows the sudden sharp realisation of 
any misfortune which comes with the first waking. 
The pavement was cool, and the air was (compara- 


88 A House in Bloomsbury, 

tively) sweet. There was a tinkle of water, though 
only from a water-cart. Miss Bethune opened the 
door into this sweetness and coolness and morning 
glory which exists even in Bloomsbury, and found 
herself suddenly confronted by a stranger, whose 
hand had been raised to knock when the door 
thus suddenly opened before him. The sudden 
encounter gave her a little shock, which was not 
lessened by the appearance of the young man—a 
young fellow of three or four and twenty, in light 
summer clothes, and with a pleasant sunburnt 
countenance. 

Not his the form, not his the eye. 

That youthful maidens wont to fly. 

Miss Bethune was no youthful maiden, but this 
sudden apparition had a great effect upon her. 
The sight made her start, and grow red and grow 
pale without any reason, like a young person in 
her teens. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said the young man, 
making a step back, and taking off his hat. 
This was clearly an afterthought, and due to her 
appearance, which was not that of the mistress of 
a lodging-house. “ I wanted to ask after a-” 

“1 am not the person of the house,” said Miss 
Bethune quickly. 

“ Might I ask you all the same ? I would so 
much rather hear from some one who knows him.” 

Miss Bethune s eyes had been fixed upon him 
with the closest attention, but her interest 
suddenly changed and dropped at the last word. 
‘"Him?” she said involuntarily, with a flash out 



A House in Bloomsbury. 89 

of her eyes, and a look almost of disappointment, 
almost of surprise. What had she expected 
She recovered in a moment the composure 
which had been disturbed by this stranger’s 
appearance, for what reason she only knew. 

“ I came,” he said, hesitating a little, and 
giving her another look, in which there was also 
some surprise and much curiosity, “ to inquire 
about Mr. Mannering, who, I am told, lives here.” 

“Yes, he lives here.” 

“And has been ill?” 

“ And has been ill,” she repeated after him. 

The young man smiled, and paused again. 
He seemed to be amused by these repetitions. He 
had a very pleasant face, not intellectual, not re¬ 
markable, but full of life and good-humour. He 
said : “ Perhaps I ought not to trouble you; but 
if you know him, and his child-” 

“ I know him very well, and his child,—who 
is a child no longer, but almost grown up. He 
is slowly recovering out of a very long dangerous 
illness.” 

“ That is what we heard. I came, not for 
myself, but for a lady who takes a great interest. 
I think that she is a relation of—of Mr. Manner- 
ing’s late wife.’' 

“Is that woman dead, then?” Miss Bethune 
said. “ I too take a great interest in the family. 
I shall be glad to tell you anything I know : but 
come with me into the Square, where we can talk 
at our ease.” She led him to a favourite seat 
under the shadow of a tree. Though it was in 
Bloomsbury, and the sounds of town were in the 


90 A House in Bloomshtry. 

air, that quiet green place might have been far 
in the country, in the midst of pastoral acres. 
The Squares of Bloomsbury are too respectable 
to produce many children. There were scarcely 
even any perambulators to vulgarise this retreat. 
She turned to him as she sat down, and said 
again : “ So that woman is dead ? ” 

The young stranger looked surprised. “You 
mean Mrs. Mannering.^” he said. “I suppose 
so, though I know nothing of her. May I say 
who I am first ? My name is Gordon. I have 
just come from South America with Mrs. Bristow, 
the wife of my guardian, who died there a year 
ago. And it is she who has sent me to inquire.” 

“Gordon?” said Miss Bethune. She had 
closed her eyes, and her head was going round ; 
but she signed to him with her hand to sit down, 
and made a great effort to recover herself “ You 
will be of one of the Scotch families ? ” she said. 

“ I don’t know. I have never been in this 
country till now.” 

“ Born abroad ? ” she said, suddenly opening 
her eyes. 

“ I think so—at least—but, indeed, I can tell 
you very little about myself It was Mrs. Bris¬ 
tow -” 

“Yes, I know. I am very indiscreet, putting 
so many questions, but you reminded me of—of 
some one I once knew. Mrs. Bristow, you were 
saying ? ” 

“ She was very anxious to know something of 
Mr. Mannering and his child. I think she must 
be a relation of his late wife.” 



A House in Bloomsbury, 91 

“ God be thanked if there is a relation that 
may be of use to Dora. She wants to know— 
what? If you were going to question the land¬ 
lady, it would not be much-” 

“ I was to try to do exactly what I seem to 
have been so fortunate as to have done—to find 
some friend whom I could ask about them. I am 
sure you must be a friend to them ? ” 

“How can you be sure of that, you that know 
neither them nor me ? ” 

He smiled, with a very attractive, ingenuous 
smile. “ Because you have the face of a friend.” 

“Have I that? There’s many, many, then, 
that would have been the better for knowing it that 
have never found it out. And you are a friend to 
Mrs. Bristow on the other side? ” 

“ A friend to her —no, I am more like her son, 
yet not her son, for my own mother is living—at 
least, I believe so. I am her servant, and a little 
her ward, and—devoted to her,” he added, with a 
bright flush of animation and sincerity. Miss 
Bethune took no notice of these last words. 

“ Your mother is living, you believe? and don’t 
you know her, then ? And why should you be 
ward or son to this other woman, and your mother 
alive ? ” 

“ Pardon me,” said the young man, “ that is my 
story, and it is not worth a thought. The question 
is about Mrs. Bristow and the Mannerings. She 
is anxious about them, and she is very broken in 
health. And I think there is some family trouble 
there too, so that she can’t come in a natural 
straightforward way and make herself known to 


92 A House in Bloomsbury, 

them. These family quarrels are dreadful 
things.” 

“ Dreadful things,” Miss Bethune said. 

“ They are bad enough for those with whom 
they originate; but for those who come after, worse 
still. To be deprived of a natural friend all your 
life because of some row that took place before you 
were born! ” 

“You are a Daniel come to judgment,” said 
Miss Bethune, pale to her very lips. 

“ I hope,” he said kindly, “ I am not saying 
anything I ought not to say I hope you are not 
ill.?” 

“Go on,” she said, waving her hand. 
“About this Mrs. Bristow, that is what we were 
talking of. The Mannerings could not be more 
in need of a friend than they are now. He has 
been very ill. I hear it is very doubtful if he’ll 
ever be himself again, or able to go back to his 
occupation. And she is very young, nearly 
grown up, but still a child. If there was a friend, 
a relation, to stand up for them, now would be 
the very time.” 

“ Thank you,” he said. “ I have been very 
fortunate in finding you, but I don't think Mrs. 
Bristow can take any open step. My idea is that 
she must be a sister of Mrs. Mannering, and thus 
involved in the dissension, whatever it was.” 

“ It was more than a dissension, so far as I 
have heard,” Miss Bethune said. 

“ That is what makes it so hard. What she 
wishes is to see Dora.” 

“Dora?” 


A House in Bloomsbtiry, 93 

“ Indeed, I mean no disrespect. I have never 
known her by any other name. I have helped 
to pack boxes for her, and choose playthings.” 

Miss Bethune uttered a sudden exclamation. 

“Then it was from Mrs. Bristow the boxes 
came ? ” 

“ Have I let out something that was a secret.^ 
I am not very good at secrets,” he said with a 
laugh. 

“ She might be an aunt as you say :—an aunt 
would be a good thing for her, poor child :—or 

she might be-But is it Dora only she wants 

to see } ” 

“ Dora only; and only Dora if it is certain 
that she would entertain no prejudices against a 
relation of her mother.” 

“ How could there be prejudices of such a 
kind } ” 

“That is too much to say: but I know from 
my own case that there are,” the young man said. 

“ I would like to hear your own case.” 

He laughed again “You are very kind to be 
so much interested in a stranger: but I must 
settle matters for my kind guardian. She has not 
been a happy woman, I don’t know why,—though 
he was as good a man as ever lived :—and now 
she is in very poor health—oh, really ill. I 
scarcely thought I could have got her to England 
alive. To see Dora is all she seems to wish for. 
Help me, oh, help me to get her that gratifica¬ 
tion ! ” he cried. 

Miss Bethune smiled upon him in reply, with 
an involuntary movement of her hands towards 


94 ^ House in Bloomsbury. 

him. She was pale, and a strange light was on 
her face. 

“ I will do that if I can,” she said. “ I will do 
it if it is possible. If I help you what will you 
give me in return ? ” 

The youth looked at her in mild surprise. He 
did not understand what she could mean. “ Give 
you in return ? ” he asked, with astonishment. 

“ Ay, my young man, for my hire; everybody 
has a price, as I daresay you have heard said 
—which is a great lie, and yet true enough. Mine 
is not just a common price, as you will believe. 
I’m full of fancies, a—whimsical kind of a being. 
You will have to pay me for my goodwill.” 

He rose up from the seat under the tree, and, 
taking off his hat again, made her a solemn bow. 
“Anything that is within my power I will gladly 
give to secure my good guardian what she wishes. 
I owe everything to her.” 

Miss Bethune sat looking up at him with that 
light on her face which made it unlike everything 
that had been seen before. She was scarcely 
recognisable, or would have been to those who 
already knew her. To the stranger standing 
somewhat stiffly before her, surprised and some¬ 
what shocked by the strange demand, it seemed 
that this, as he had thought, plain middle-aged 
woman had suddenly become beautiful. 

He had liked her face at the first. It had 
seemed to him a friend’s face, as he had said. 
But now it was something more. The surprise, 
the involuntary start of repugnance from a woman, 
a lady, who boldly asked something in return for 


A House in Bloomsbury, 95 

the help she promisedj mingled with a strange 
attraction towards her, and extraordinary curi¬ 
osity as to v/hat she could mean. To pay for 
her goodwill! Such a thing is, perhaps, implied in 
every prayer for help ; gratitude at the least, if 
nothing more, is the pay which all the world is 
supposed to give for good offices : but one does 
not ask even for gratitude in words. And she 
was in no hurry to explain. She sat in the warm 
shade, with all the greenness behind, and looked 
at him as if she found somehow a supreme satis¬ 
faction in the sight—as if she desired to prolong 
the moment, and even his curiosity and surprise. 
He on his part was stiff, disturbed, not happy 
at all. He did not like a woman to let herself 
down, to show any wrong side of her, any acquisi¬ 
tiveness, or equivocal sentiment. What did she 
want of him ? What had he to give ? The 
thought seemed to lessen himself by reason of 
lessening her in his eyes. 

“ I tell you I am a very whimsical woman,” 
she said at length; “above all things I am fond 
of hearing every man’s story, and tracing out the 
different threads of life. It is my amusement, 
like any other. If I bring this lady to speech of 
Dora, and show her how she could be of real 
advantage to both the girl and her father, will 
you promise me to come to me another time, and 
tell me, as far as you know, everything that has 
happened to you since the day you were born” 

Young Gordon’s stiffness melted away. The 
surprise on his face, which had been mingled 
with annoyance, turned into mirth and pleasure. 


g 6 A House in Bloomsbury, 

“You don’t know what you are bringing on your¬ 
self,” he said, “ nothing very amusing. I have 
little in my own record. I never had any adven¬ 
tures. But if that is your fancy, surely I will, 
whenever you like, tell you everything that I 
know about myself.” 

She rose up, with the light lading a little, but 
yet leaving behind it a sweetness which was not 
generally in Miss Bethune’s face. “ Let your 
friend come in the afternoon at three any day—it 
is then her father takes his sleep—and ask for 
Miss Bethune. I will see that it is made all 
right. And as for you, you will leave me your 
address?” she said, going with him towards the 
gate. “You said you believed your mother was 
living—is your father living too ? ” 

“He died a long time ago,” said the young 
man, and then added : “ May I not know who it 
is that is standing our friend ? ” 

Perhaps Miss Bethune did not hear him; 
certainly she let him out; and turned to lock the 
gate, without making any reply. 


CHAPTER IX. 


Dora had now a great deal to do in her father’s 
room. The two nurses had at last been got rid 
of, to the great relief of all in the house except 
Mrs. Simcox, whose bills shrank back at once to 
their original level, very different from what they 
had been, and who felt herself, besides, to be 
reduced to quite a lower level in point of society, 
her thoughts and imaginations having been filled, 
as well as those of Janie and Molly, by tales of 
the hospitals and sick-rooms, which made them 
feel as if translated into a world where the gaiety 
of perfect health and constant exercise triumphed 
over every distress. Janie and Molly had both 
determined to be nurses in the enthusiasm created 
by these recitals. They turned their little night¬ 
caps, the only things they had which could be 
so converted, into imitation nurses’ caps, and 
masqueraded in them in the spare moments when 
they could shut themselves into their little rooms 
and play at hospital. And the sitting-room down¬ 
stairs returned for these young persons to its 
original dulness when the nurses went away. 
Dora was in her fathers room all day, and 
required a great deal of help from J ane, the maid- 
of-all-work, in bringing up and taking away the 
things that were wanted : and Gilchrist watched 
over him by night. There was a great deal of 
{ 97 ) 7 


98 A House in Bloomsbury. 

beef tea and chicken broth to be prepared—no 
longer the time and trouble saving luxuries of 
Brand’s Essence and turtle soup. He would' have 
none of these luxuries now. He inquired into 
every expense, and rejected presents, and was 
angry rather than grateful when anything was 
done for him. What he would have liked would 
have been to have eaten nothing at all, to have 
passed over meal-times, and lived upon a glass of 
water or milk and a biscuit. But this could not 
be allowed ; and Mrs. Simcox had now a great 
deal of trouble in cooking for him, whereas before 
she had scarcely any at all. Mr. Mannering, 
indeed, was not an amiable convalescent. The 
breaking up of all the habits of his life was dread¬ 
ful to him. The coming back to new habits was 
more dreadful still. He thought with horror of 
the debts that must have accumulated while he 
was ill; and when he spoke of them, looked and 
talked as if the whole world had been in a con¬ 
spiracy against him, instead of doing everything, 
and contriving everything, as was the real state of 
the case, for his good. 

“ Let me have my bills, let me have my bills ; 
let me know how I stand,” he cried continually to 
Dr. Roland, who had the hardest ado to quiet 
him, to persuade him that for everything there is 
a reason. “ I know these women ought to be 
paid at once,” he would say. “ I know a man 
like Vereker ought to have his fee every time he 
comes. You intend it very kindly, Roland, I 
know ; but you are keeping me back, instead of 
helping me to recover.” What was poor Dr. 


A House in Bloomsbury 99 

Roland to say ? He was afraid to tell this proud 
man that everything was paid. That Vereker 
had taken but half fees, declaring that from a pro¬ 
fessional man of such distinction as Mr. Manner- 
ing, he ought, had the illness not been so long 
and troublesome, to have taken nothing at all,— 
was a possible thing to say; but not that Miss 
Bethune’s purse had supplied these half fees. 
Even that they should merely be half was a kind 
of grievance to the patient. “ I hope you told 
him that as soon as I was well enough I should 
see to it,” he cried. “ I have no claim to be let 
off so. Distinction ! the distinction of a half man 
who never accomplished anything! ” 

“ Come, Mannering, come, that will not do. 
You are the first and only man in England in 
your own way.” 

“In my own way? And what a miserable 
petty way, a way that leads to nothing and no¬ 
where ! ” he cried. 

This mood did not contribute to recovery. 
After his laborious dressing, which occupied all 
the morning, he would sit in his chair doing 
nothing, saying nothing, turning with a sort of 
sickness of despair from books, not looking even at 
the paper, without a smile even for Dora. The only 
thing he would sometimes do was to note down 
figures with a pencil on a sheet of paper and add 
them up, and make attempts to balance them 
with the sum which quarter day brought him. 
Poor Mr. Mannering was refused all information 
about the sums he was owing ; he put them down 
conjecturally, now adding something, now sub- 


loo A House m Bloomshuy. 

tracting something. As a matter of fact his 
highest estimation was below the truth. And 
then, by some unhappy chance, the bills that were 
lying in the sitting-room were brought to him. 
Alas! the foolishest bills—bills which Dora s 
father, knowing that she was unprovided tor, 
should never have incurred—bills for old books, 
for fine editions, for delicate scientific instruments. 
A man with only his income from the Museum, 
and his child to provide for, should never have 
thought of such things. 

“ Father,” said Dora, thinking of nothing but 
to rouse him, “ there is a large parcel which has 
never been opened, which came from Fiddler’s 
after you were taken ill. I had not any heart to 
open it to see what was in it; but perhaps it 
would amuse you to look at what is in it now.” 

“Fiddler’s.^” he said, with a sick look of 
dismay. “Another—another! What do I want 
with books, when I have not a penny to pay my 
expenses, nor a place to hide my head ? ” 

“ Oh, father, don’t talk so : only have patience, 
and everything will come right,” cried Dora, with 
the facile philosophy of youth. “ They are great 
big books; I am sure they are something you 
wanted very much. It will amuse you to look at 
them, at least.” 

He did not consent in words, but a half motion 
of his head made Dora bring in, after a little delay 
to undo the large parcel, two great books covered 
with old-fashioned gilding, in brown leather, frayed 
at the corners—books to make the heart of a con¬ 
noisseur dance, books looked out for in catalogues, 


A House in Bloomsbury. loi 

followed about from one sale to another. Mr. 
Mannering’s eyes, though they were dim and 
sunken, gave forth a momentary blaze. He put 
out his trembling hands for them, as Dora ap¬ 
proached, almost tottering under the weight, 
carrying them in her arms. 

I will put them beside you on the table, 
father. Now you can look at them without tiring 
yourself, and I will run and fetch your beef tea. 
Oh, good news! ” cried Dora, flinging into Miss 
Bethune’s room as she ran downstairs. “He is 
taking a little interest! I have just given him 
the books from Fiddler’s, and he is looking a little 
like his own self.” 

She had interrupted what seemed a very 
serious conversation, perceiving this only now 
after she had delivered her tidings. She blushed, 
drew back, and begged Miss Bethune’s pardon, 
with a curious look at the unknown visitor who 
was seated on the sofa by that lady’s side. Dora 
knew all Miss Bethune’s visitors by heart. She 
knew most of those even who were pensioners, 
and came for money or help, and had been used 
to be called in to help to entertain the few callers 
for years past. But this was some one altogether 
new, not like anybody she had ever seen before, 
very much agitated, with a grey and worn face, 
which got cruelly red by moments, looking ill, 
tired, miserable. Poor lady ! and in deep mourn¬ 
ing, which was no doubt the cause of her trouble, 
and a heavy crape veil hanging over her face. 
She gave a little cry at the sight of Dora, and 
clasped her hands. The gesture caused her veil 


102 A House in Bloomsbury. 

to descend like a cloud, completely concealing 
her face. 

“ I beg* your pardon, indeed. I did not know 
there was anybody here.” 

Miss Bethune made her a sign to be silent, 
and laid her hand upon her visitor’s arm, who was 
tremulously putting up her veil in the same 
dangerous overhanging position as before. 

“This is Dora—as you must have guessed,” 
she said. 

The lady began to cry, feebly sobbing, as if 
she could not restrain herself. “ I saw it was—I 
saw it was,” she said. 

“ Dora, come here,” said Miss Bethune. 

This lady is—a relation of yours—a relation of 
—your poor mamma.” 

The lady sobbed, and held out her hands. 
Dora was not altogether pleased with her appear¬ 
ance. She might have cried at home, the girl 
thought. When you go out to pay a call, or even 
to make inquiries, you should make them and not 
cry : and there was something that was ridiculous 
in the position of the veil, ready to topple over in 
its heavy folds of crape She watched it to see 
when the moment would come. 

“ Why ‘ my poor mamma ’} ” said Dora. “Is 
it because mother is dead ? ” 

“There are enough of reasons,” Miss Bethune 
said hastily. 

Dora flung back her head with a sudden 
resistance and defiance. “ I don’t know about 
mother. She has been dead ever since I remem¬ 
ber ; but she was my mother, and nobody has any 


A House in Bloomshuy. 103 

right to be sorry for her, as though that were a 
misfortune.” 

‘‘ She is a little perverse thing,” said Miss 
Bethune, “but she has a great spirit. Dora, 
come here. I will go and see about your papas 
beef tea, while you come and speak to this lady.” 
She stooped over the girl for a moment as she 
passed her going out. “ And be kind,” she 
whispered; “for she’s very ill, poor thing, and 
very broken. Be merciful in your strength and 
in your youth.” 

Dora could not tell what this might mean. 
Merciful ? She, who was still only a child, and, 
to her own consciousness, ordered about by every¬ 
body, and made nothing of. The stranger sat on 
the sofa, trembling and sobbing, her face of a 
sallow paleness, her eyes half extinguished in 
tears. The heavy folds of the crape hanging over 
her made the faded countenance appear as if 
looking out of a cave. 

“ I am afraid you are not well,” said Dora, 
drawing slowly near. 

“No, I am not at all well. Come here and 
sit by me, will you 1 I am—dying, I think.” 

“Oh, no,” said Dora, with a half horror, half 
pity. “ Do not say that.” 

The poor lady shook her head. “ I should 
not mind, if perhaps it made people a little for¬ 
giving—a little indulgent. Oh, Dora, my child, 
is it you, really you, at last ? ” 

Dora suffered her hand to be taken, suffered 
herself to be drawn close, and a tremulous kiss 
pressed upon her ch^ek. She did not know how 


104 ^ House in Bloomsbury. 

to respond. She felt herself entangled in the 
great crape veil, and her face wet with the other s 
tears. She herself was touched by pity, but by a 
little contrariety as well, and objection to this 
sudden and so intimate embrace. 

“ I am very, very sorry if you are ill,” she 
said, disengaging herself as gently as possible. 
“ My father has been very ill, so I know about 
it now ; but I don’t know you.” 

“ My darling,” the poor lady said. “ My 
darling, my little child! my Dora, that I have 
thought and dreamed of night and day ! ” 

Dora was more than ever confused. “ But I 
don’t know you at all,” she said. 

“ No, that is what is most dreadful : not at 
all, not at all!—and I dying for the sight of you, 
and to hold you in my arms once before I die.” 

She held the girl with her trembling arms, 
and the two faces, all entangled and overshadowed 
by the great black veil, looked into each other, 
so profoundly unlike, not a line in either which 
recalled or seemed to connect with the other. 
Dora was confounded and abashed by the close 
contact, and her absolute incapacity to respond to 
this enthusiasm. She put up her hands, which 
was the only thing that occurred to her, and threw 
quite back with a subdued yet energetic move¬ 
ment that confusing veil. She was conscious of 
performing this act very quietly, but to the stran¬ 
ger the quick soft movement was like energy and 
strength personified. 

“ Oh, Dora,” she said, “you are not like me. 
I never was so lively, so strong as you are. I 


A House in Bloomsbury. 105 

think I must have been a poor creature, always 
depending upon somebody. You could never be 
like that.” 

I don’t know,” said Dora. “ Ought I to have 
been like you Are we such near relations as 
that?” 

“Just as near as—almost as near as—oh, 
child, how I have longed for you, and thought of 
you! You have never, never been out of my 
mind—not a day, Dora, scarcely an hour. Oh, if 
you only knew I ” 

“You must then have been very fond of my 
mother,” Dora said a little stiffly. She might 
have been less cold had this enthusiasm been less 
great. 

“ Your mother! ” the stranger said. She broke 
out into audible weeping again, after compafetive 
composure. “ Oh, yes, I suppose I was—oh, 
yes, I suppose I was,” she said. 

“You only suppose you were, and yet you 
are so fond as this of me.^—which can be only,” 
said Dora, severely logical, “for her sake.” 

The poor lady trembled, and was still for a 
moment; she then said, faltering: “ We were so 
close together, she and I. We were like one. 
But a child is different—you are her and your¬ 
self too. But you are so young, my dearest, my 
dearest I You will not understand that.” 

“ I understand it partly,” said Dora; “but it 
is so strange that I never heard of you. Were 
my mother’s relations against my father? You 
must forgive me,” the girl said, withdrawing her¬ 
self a little, sitting very upright; “ but father, you 


ro6 A Hotise in Bloomsbury. 

know, has been everything to me. Father and 
I are one. I should like very much to hear about 
mamma, who must have died so long ago : but 
my first thought must always be for father, who 
has been everything to me, and I to him.” 

A long minute passed, during which the 
stranger said nothing. Her head was sunk upon 
her breast; her hand—which was on Dora’s waist 
—quivered, the nervous fingers beating uncon¬ 
sciously upon Dora’s firm smooth belt. 

“ I have nothing, nothing to say to you against 
your father. Oh, nothing !—not a word ! I have 
no complaint—no complaint! Fie is a good man, 
your father. And to have you cling to him, stand 
up for him, is not that enough}—is not that 
enough,” she cried, with a shrill tone, “whatever 
failed ? ” 

“ Then,” said Dora, pursuing her argument, 
“ mamma’s relations were not friends to him ? ” 

The lady withdrew her arm from Dora’s waist. 
She clasped her tremulous hands together, as if 
in supplication. “ Nothing was done against him 
—oh, nothing, nothing! ” she cried. “ There was 
no one to blame, everybody said so. It was a 
dreadful fatality; it was a thing no one could have 
foreseen or guarded against. Oh, my Dora, 
couldn’t you give a little love, a little kindness, to 
a poor woman, even though she was not what you 
call a friend to your father ? She never was his 
enemy—never, never !—never had an evil thought 
of him !—never wished to harm him—oh, never, 
never, never! ” she cried. 

She swayed against Dora’s breast, rocking 


A House iu Bloomsbtiry, 107 

herself in uncontrolled distress, and Dora’s heart 
was touched by that involuntary contact, and by 
the sight of an anguish which was painfully real, 
though she did not understand what it meant. 
With a certain protecting impulse, she put her 
own arm round the weeping woman to support 
her. “ Don’t cry,” she said, as she might have 
said to a child. 

“ I will not cry. I will be very glad, and very 
happy, if you will only give me a little of your 
love, Dora,” the lady sobbed in a broken voice. 
“A little of your love,—not to take it from your 
father,—a little, just a little! Oh, my child, my 
child! ” 

“ Are you my mother’s sister.^ ” the girl asked 
solemnly. 

The stranger raised her head again, with a 
look which Dora did not understand. Her eyes 
were full of tears, and of a wistful appeal which 
said nothing to the creature to whom it was ad¬ 
dressed. After a moment, with a pathetic cry of 
pain and self-abandonment, she breathed forth a 
scarcely intelligible “Yes”. 

“ Then now I know,” said Dora, in a more 
satisfied tone. She was not without emotion her¬ 
self. It was impossible to see so much feeling 
and not to be more or less affected by it, even 
when one did not understand, or even felt it to be 
extreme. “Then I will call you aunt, and we 
shall know where we are,” she added. “ I am 
very glad to have relations, as everybody has 
them. May I mention you to father? It must 
be long since you quarrelled, whatever it was 


io8 A House in Bloo^nsbury, 

about. I shall say to him: ‘You need not take 
any notice, but I am glad, very glad, to have an 
aunt like other girls 

“ No, no, no, no—not to him ! You must not 
say a word.” 

“ I don’t know how I can keep a secret from 
father,” Dora said. 

“Oh, child,” cried the lady, “do not be too 
hard on us! It would be hard for him, too, and 
he has been ill. Don’t say a word to him—for 
his own sake ! ” 

“It will be very strange to keep a secret from 
father,” Dora said reflectively. Then she added : 
“To be sure, there have been other things— 
about the nurses, and all that. And he is still 
.^ery weak. I will not mention it, since you say 
it is for his own sake.” 

“For we could never meet—never, never!” 
cried the lady, with her head on Dora’s breast— 
“ never, unless perhaps one of us were dying. I 
could never look him in the face, though perhaps 

if I were dying-Dora, kiss your poor—your 

poor, poor—relation. Oh, my child I oh, my 
darling ! kiss me as that I ” 

“ Dear aunt,” said Dora quietly. She spoke 
in a very subdued tone, in order to keep down 
the quite uncalled-for excitement and almost 
passion in the other’s voice. She could not but 
feel that her new relation was a person with very 
little self-control, expressing herself far too 
strongly, with repetitions and outcries quite 
uncalled tor in ordinary conversation, and that it 
was her, Dora’s, business to exercise a mollifying 



A House in Bloomsbury, 109 

influence. ‘‘ This is for you,” she said, touching 
the sallow, thin cheek with her young rosy lips. 
“And this is for poor mamma—poor young 
mamma, whom I never saw.” 

The lady gave a quick cry, and clutched the 
girl in her trembling arms. 


CHAPTER X. 


The meeting with her new relation had a great 
effect upon Dora’s mind. It troubled her, though 
there was no reason in the world why the dis¬ 
covery that her mother had a sister, and she her¬ 
self an aunt, should be painful. An aunt is not 
a very interesting relation generally, not enough 
to make a girl’s heart beat; but it added a com¬ 
plication to the web of altogether new difficul¬ 
ties in wffilch Dora found herself entangled. 
Everything had been so simple in the old days 
—those dear old days now nearly three months 
off, before Mr. Mannering fell ill, to which now 
Dora felt herself go back with such a sense of 
happiness and ease, perhaps never to be known 
again. Then everything had been above board : 
there had been no payments to make that were 
not made naturally by her father, the fountain¬ 
head of everything, who gave his simple orders, 
and had them fulfilled, and provided for every 
necessity. Now Dora feared a knock at the door 
of his room lest it should be some indiscreet 
messenger bringing direct a luxury or novelty 
which it had been intended to smuggle in so that 
he might not observe It, or introduce with some 
one’s compliments as an accidental offering to the 
sick man. To hurry off Janie or Molly down¬ 
stairs with these good things intended to tempt 
(no) 


A Hotise in Bloomsbury. 111 

the invalid’s appetite, to stamp a secret foot at 
the indiscretions of Jane, who would bring in the 
bill for these dainties, or announce their arrival 
loud out, rousing Mr. Mannering to inquiries, 
and give a stern order that such extravagances 
should be no more, were now common experi¬ 
ences to Dora. She had to* deceive him, which 
was. Miss Bethune assured her, for his good, but 
which Dora felt with a sinking heart was not at 
all for her own good, and made her shrink from 
her father’s eye. To account for the presence of 
some rare wine which was good for him by a 
little story which, though it had been carefully 
taught her by Dr. Roland or Miss Bethune, was 
not true—to make out that it was the most 
natural thing in the world that patis de fois graSy 
and the strongest soups and essence should be 
no more expensive than common beef tea, the 
manufacture of Bloomsbury, because the doctor 
knew some place where they were to be had at 
wholesale rates for almost nothing—these were 
devices now quite familiar to her. 

It was no worse to conceal the appearance of 
this new and strange personage on the scene, the 
relation of whom she had never heard, and whose 
existence was to remain a secret; but still it was 
a bigger secret than any that concerned the things 
that were to eat or drink, or even Mrs. Simcox’s 
bills. Concealment is an art that has to be care¬ 
fully learnt, like other arts, and it is extremely 
difficult to some minds, who will more easily 
acquire the most elaborate handicraft than the 
trick of selecting what is to be told and what is 


112 A House in Bloomsbury, 

not to be told. It was beyond all description 
difficult to Dora. She was ready to betray herself 
at almost every moment, and had it not been that 
her own mind was much perturbed and troubled 
by her strange visitor, and by attempts to account 
for her to herself, she never could have succeeded 
in it. What could flie offence be that made it im¬ 
possible for her father ever to meet the sister of 
his wife again? Dora had learned from novels a 
great deal about the mysteries of life, some which 
her natural mind rejected as absurd, some which 
she contemplated with awe as tragic possibilities 
entirely out ot the range of common life. She 
had read about implacable persons who once 
offended could never forgive, and of those who 
revenged themselves and pursued a feud to the 
death. But the idea of her father in either of 
these characters was too ridiculous to be dwelt 
upon tor a moment. And there had been no evil 
intended, no harm,—only a fatality. What is a 
fatality? To have such dreadful issues, a thing 
must be serious, very terrible. Dora was be¬ 
wildered and overawed. She put this question to 
Miss Bethune, but received no light on the subject. 
“A fatality is a thing that is not intentional—that 
happens by accident—that brings harm when you 
mean nothing but good,” that authority said. 

“But how should that be? It says in the 
Bible that people must not do evil that good may 
come. But to do good that evil may come, I 
never heard of that.” 

“ There are many things in the world that 
you never heard of, Dora, my dear.” 


A House in Bloomsbury, 113 

“ Oh yes, yes, I know,” cried the girl im¬ 
patiently. “You are always saying that, because 
I am young—as if it were my fault that I am 
young; but that does not change anything. It 
is no matter, then, whether you have any mean¬ 
ing in what you do or not ? ” 

“ Sometimes it appears as if it was no matter 
We walk blindly in this world, and often do 
things unawares that we would put our hands in 
the fire rather than do You say an unguarded 
word, meaning nothing, and it falls to the ground, 
as you think, but afterwards springs up into a 
poisonous tree and blights your life ; or you take 
a turn to the right hand instead of the left when 
you go out from your own door, and it means 
ruin and death—that’s fatality, and it’s every¬ 
where,” said Miss Bethune, with a deep sigh. 

“I do not believe in it,” said Dora, standing 
straight and strong, like a young tree, and hold¬ 
ing her head high. 

“ Nor did I, my dear, when I was your age,” 
Miss Bethune said. 

At this moment there was a light knock at 
the door, and there appeared suddenly the young 
man whom Miss Bethune had met in the Square, 
and who had come as the messenger of the lady 
who was Dora’s aunt. 

“ She is asking me what fatality is,” said Miss 
Bethune. I wonder if you have any light to 
throw on the subject? You are nearer her age 
than I.” 

The two young people looked at each other. 
Dora, though she was only sixteen, was more of a 
8 


114 A House in Bloomsbury. 

personage than the young Gordon whom she had 
not seen before. She looked at him with the 
condescension of a very young girl brought up 
among elder people, and apt to feel a boundless 
imaginative superiority over those of her own age. 
A young man was a slight person to Dora. She 
was scarcely old enough to feel any of the interest 
in him which exists naturally between the youth 
and the maiden. She looked at him from her 
pedestal, half scornful beforehand of anything he 
might say 

‘^Fatality?” he said. ‘‘I think it’s a name 
people invent for anything particularly foolish 
which they do, when it turns out badly : though 
they might have known it would turn out badly 
all the time.” 

That is exactly what I think,” cried Dora, 
clapping her hands. 

“ This is the young lady,” said young Gordon, 
‘‘whom I used to help to pack the toys for. I 
hope she will let me call her Miss Dora, for I 
don’t know her by any other name.” 

“To pack the toys?” said Dora. Her face 
grew blank, then flashed with a sudden light, then 
grew quite white and still again, with a gasp of 
astonishment and recognition. “Oh!” she cried, 
and something of disappointment was in her tone, 
“was it—was it she that sent them?” In the 
commotion of her feelings a sudden deep I'ed 
followed the paleness. Dora was all fancy, 
changeableness, fastidiousness, imagination, as was 
natural to her a.ge. Why was she disappointed 
to know that her yearly presents coming out of 


A Hotise m Bloomsbury. 115 

the unseen, the fairy gifts that testified to some 
love unknown, came from so legitimate a source, 
from her mother’s sister, her own nearest relation 
—the lady of the other day ? I cannot tell how it 
was, nor could she, nor any one, but it was so ; 
and she felt this visionary, absurd disappointment 
go to the bottom of her heart. “ Oh,” she re¬ 
peated, growing blank again, with a sort of opaque 
shadow closing over the brightness of her eyes 
and clouding her face, “so that was where my 
boxes came from ? And you helped to pack the 
toys ? I ought to have known,” said Dora, very 
sedately, feeling as if she had suddenly fallen 
from a great height. 

“ Yes,” said Miss Bethune, “ we ought to have 
thought of that at once. Who else could have 
followed with such a faithful imagination, Dora? 
Who could have remembered your age, and the 
kind of things you want, and how you would grow, 
but a kind woman like that, with all the feelings 
of a mother ? Oh, we should have thought of it 
before.” 

Dora at first made no reply. Her face, gener¬ 
ally so changeable and full of expression, settled 
down more and more into opaqueness and a blank 
rigidity She was deeply disappointed, though 
why she could not have told—nor what dream of 
a fairy patroness, an exalted friend, entirely be¬ 
longing to the realins of fancy, she had conceived 
in her childish imagination as the giver of these 
gifts. At all events, the fact was so. Mrs. Bris¬ 
tow, with her heavy crape veil, ready to fall at any 
moment over her face, with the worn lines of her 


116 A House in Bloomsbury. 

countenance, the flush and heat of emotion, her 
tears and repetitions, was a disappointing image to 
come between her and the vision of a tender friend, 
too delicate, too ethereal a figure for any common¬ 
place embodiment which had been a kind of tute¬ 
lary genius in Dora’s dreams all her life. Any one 
in actual flesh and blood would have been a shock 
after that long-cherished, visionary dream. And 
young Gordon’s laughing talk of the preparation 
of the box, and of his own suggestions as to its 
contents, and the picture he conjured up of a mys¬ 
tery which was half mischievous, and in which 
there was not only a desire to please but to puzzle 
the distant recipient of all these treasures, both 
offended and shocked the girl in the fantastic 
delicacy of her thoughts. 

Without being himself aware of it, the young 
man gave a glimpse into the distant Southern 
home, in which it would appear he had been 
brought up, which was in reality very touching 
and attractive, though it reduced Dora to a more 
and more strong state of revolt. On the other 
hand. Miss Bethune listened to him with a rapt 
air of happiness, which was more wonderful still 
—asking a hundred questions, never tiring of any 
detail. Dora bore it all as long as she could, 
feeling herself sink more and more from the posi¬ 
tion of a young princess, mysteriously loved and 
cherished by a distant friend, half angelic, half 
queenly, into that of a little girl, whom a fantastic 
kind relation wished to pet and to bewilder, half 
in love and half in fun, taking the boy into her 
confidence, who was still more to her and nearer 


A House in Bloomsbury. 117 

to her than Dora. She could not understand how 
Miss Bethune could sit and listen with that rapt 
countenance; and she finally broke in, in the very 
midst of the narrative to which she had listened 
(had any one taken any notice) with growing im¬ 
patience, to say suddenly, “In the meantime father 
is by himself, and I shall have to go to him,” with 
a tone of something like injury in her voice. 

“ But Gilchrist is there if he wants anything, 
Dora.” 

“Gilchrist is very kind, but she is not quite 
the same as me,” said Dora, holding her head 
high. 

She made Mr. Gordon a little gesture, some¬ 
thing between farewell and dismissal, in a very 
lofty way, impressing upon the young man a sense 
of having somehow offended, which he could 
not understand. He himself was very much in¬ 
terested in Dora. He had known of her exist¬ 
ence for years. She had been a sort of secret 
between him and the wife of his guardian, who, 
he was well aware, never discussed with her hus¬ 
band or mentioned in his presence the child who 
was so mysteriously dear to her; but bestowed all 
her confidence on this subject on the boy who had 
grown up in her house and filled to her the place 
of a son. He had liked the confidence and the 
secret and the mystery, without much inquiring 
what they meant. They meant, he supposed, a 
family quarrel, such as that which had affected all 
his own life. . Such things are a bore and a nuis¬ 
ance ; but, after all, don’t matter very much to 
any but those with whom they originate. And 


118 A House in Bloo 7 nsbury. 

young Gordon was not disposed to trouble his 
mind with any sort of mystery now. 

“ Have I said anything I should not have 
said ? Is she displeased ” he said. 

“It matters very little if she is displeased or 
not, a fantastic little girl! ” cried Miss Bethune. 
“ Go on, go on with what you are saying. I take 
more interest in it than words can say.” 

But it was not perhaps exactly the same thing 
to continue that story in the absence of the hero¬ 
ine whose name was its centre all through. She 
was too young to count with serious effect in the 
life of a man; and yet it would be difficult to draw 
any arbitrary line in respect to age with a tall girl 
full of that high flush of youth which adopts every 
semblance in turn, and can put all the dignity of 
womanhood in the eyes of a child. Young Gor¬ 
don’s impulse slackened in spite of himself; he 
was pleased, and still more amused, by the inter¬ 
est he excited in this lady, who had suddenly 
taken him into her intimacy with no reason that 
he knew of, and was so anxious to know all his 
story. It was droll to see her listening in that 
rapt way,—droll, yet touching too. She had said 
that he reminded her of somebody she knew— 
perhaps it was some one who was dead, a young 
brother, a friend of earlier years. He laughed a 
little to himself, though he was also affected by 
this curious unexpected interest in him. But he 
certainly had not the same freedom and eloquence 
in talking of the old South American home, now 
broken up, and the visionary little maiden, who, 
all unknown herself, had lent it a charm, when 


A House in Bloomsbury. 119 

Dora was gone. Neither, perhaps, did Miss 
Bethune concentrate her interest on that part that 
related to Dora. When he began to flag she 
asked him questions of a different kind. 

“ Those guardians of yours must have been 
very good to you—as good as parents ? ” she 
said. 

^‘Very good, but not perhaps like parents; for 
I remember my father very well, and I still have 
a mother, you know.” 

“Your father,” she said, turning away her 
head a little, “was devoted to you, I suppose?” 

Devoted to me ? ” he said, with a little 
surprise, and then laughed. “He was kind 
enough. We got on very well together. Do 
men and their sons do more than that ? ” 

“ I know very little about men and their 
sons,” she said hastily; “about men and women 
I maybe know a little, and not much to their 
advantage. Oh, you are there, Gilchrist! This 
is the gentleman I was speaking to you about. 
Do you see the likeness ? ” 

Gilchrist advanced a step into the room, with 
much embarrassment in her honest face. She 
uttered a broken laugh, which was like a giggle, 
and began as usual to fold hems in her apron. 

“ I cannot say, mem, that I see a resemblance 
to any person,” she said. 

“You are just a stupid creature!” said her 
mistress,—“ good for nothing but to make an 
invalid’s beef tea. Just go away, go away and do 
that.” She turned suddenly to young Gordon, as 
Gilchrist went out of the room. “That stupid 


120 A House m Bloomsbury. 

woman’s face doesn’t bring anything to your 
mind ? ” she said hastily. 

“ Bring anything to my mind 1 ” he cried, with 
great surprise. “ What should she bring to my 
mind ? ” 

“It was just a fancy that came into mine. 
Do you remember the scene in Guy Mannering, 
where Bertram first sees Dominie Sampson 
Eh, I hope your education has not been neglected 
in that great particular ? ” 

“ I remember the scene,” he said, with a 
smile. 

“It was perhaps a little of what you young 
folk call melodramatic: but Harry Bertram’s 
imagination gets a kind of shock, and he remem¬ 
bers. And so you are a reader of Sir Walter, 
and mind that scene ? ” 

“ I remember it very well,” said the young 
man, bewildered. “But about the maid You 
said-” 

“ Oh, nothing about the maid ; she’s my faith¬ 
ful maid, but a stupid woman as ever existed. 
Never you mind what I said. I say things that 
are very silly from time to time. But I would 
like to know how you ever heard your mother 
was living, when you have never seen her, nor 
know anything about her I suppose not even 
her name ? ” 

“My father told me so when he was dying: 
he told Mr. Bristow so, but he gave us no further 

information. I gathered that my mother-It 

is painful to betray such an impression.” 

She looked at him with a deep red rising over 



A House in Bloomsbury. 121 

her cheeks, and a half-defiant look. “ I am old 
enough to be your mother, you need not hesitate 
to speak before me,” she said. 

“ It is not that; it is that I can’t associate that 
name with anything—anything—to be ashamed 
of.” 

“ I would hope not, indeed ! ” she cried, stand¬ 
ing up, towering over him as if she had added a 
foot to her height. She gave forth a long fiery 
breath, and then asked, “ Did he dare to say 
that ? ” with a heaving breast. 

“He did not say it: but my guardian thought 

“ Oh, your guardian thought! That was 
what your guardian would naturally think. A 
man—that is always of an evil mind where women 
are concerned ! And what did she think ?—her, 
his wife, the other guardian, the woman I have 
seen } ” 

“ She is not like any one else,” said young 
Gordon; “she will never believe in any harm. 
You have given me one scene, I will give you 
another. She said what Desdemona said, ‘ I do 
not believe there was ever any such woman’.” 

“Bless her! But oh, there are—there are!” 
cried Miss Bethune, tears filling her eyes, “ in life 
as well as in men’s ill imaginations. But not 
possible to her or to me! ” 



CHAPTER XL 


Young Gordon had gone, and silence had fallen 
over Miss Bethune’s room. It was a common¬ 
place room enough, well-sized, for the house was 
old and solid, with three tall windows swathed in 
red rep curtains, partially softened but not extin¬ 
guished by the white muslin ones which had been 
put up over them. Neither Miss Bethune nor 
her maid belonged to the decorative age. They 
had no principles as to furniture, but accepted 
what they had, with rather a preference than 
otherwise for heavy articles in mahogany, and 
things that were likely to last. They thought 
Mr. Mannerings dainty furniture and his faded 
silken curtains were rather of the nature of trum¬ 
pery. People could think so in these days, and 
in the locality of Bloomsbury, without being 
entirely abandoned in character, or given up to 
every vicious sentiment. Therefore, I cannot 
say, as I should be obliged to say now-a-days, in 
order to preserve any sympathy for Miss Bethune 
in the readers mind, that the room was pretty, 
and contained an indication of its mistress’s 
character in every carefully arranged corner. It 
was a room furnished by Mrs. Simcox, the land¬ 
lady. It had been embellished, perhaps, by a 
warm hearthrug—not Persian, however, by any 
means—and made comfortable by a few easy 
( 122 ) 


A House in Bloomsbury. 123 

chairs. There were a number of books about, 
and there was one glass full of wallflowers on the 
table, very sweet in sober colours—a flower that 
rather corresponds with the mahogany, and the 
old-fashioned indifference to ornament and love of 
use. You would have thought, had you looked 
into this room, which was full of spring sunshine, 
bringing out the golden tints in the wallflower, 
and reflected in the big mirror above the fireplace, 
that it was empty after young Gordon had gone. 
But it was not empty. It was occupied instead 
by a human heart, so overbursting with passionate 
hope, love, suspense, and anxiety, that it was a 
wonder the silence did not tinge, and the quiet 
atmosphere betray that strain and stress of feel¬ 
ing. Miss Bethune sat in the shadowed corner 
between the fireplace and the farther window, 
with the whiteness of the curtains blowing softly 
in her face as the air came in. That flutter 
dazzled the beholder, and made Gilchrist think 
when she entered that there was nobody there. 
The maid looked round, and then clasped her 
hands and said to herself softly : “ She’ll be gane 
into her bedroom to greet there 

“ And why should I greet, you foolish woman?” 
cried Miss Bethune from her corner, with a thrill 
in her voice which betrayed the commotion in her 
mind. 

Gilchrist started so violently that the bundle 
of clean “things,” fresh and fragrant from the 
country cart which had brought home the washing, 
fell from her arms. “ Oh, mem, if I had kent you 
were there.” 


124 ^ House in Bloomsbury. 

“ My bonnie clean things!” cried Miss Bethune, 
“ with the scent of the grass upon them—and now 
they’re all spoiled with the dust of Bloomsbury I 
Gather them up and carry them away, and then 
you can come back here.” She remained for a 
moment as quiet as before, after Gilchrist had 
hurried away ; but any touch would have been 
sufficient to move her in her agitation, and pre¬ 
sently she rose and began to pace about the room. 
“ Gone to my room to greet there, is that what 
she thinks Like Mary going to the grave to 
weep there. No, no, that’s not the truth. It’s 
the other way. I might be going to laugh, and 
to clap my hdnds, as they say in the Psalms. But 
laughing is not the first expression of joy. I 
would maybe be more like greeting, as she says. 
A person laughs in idleness, for fun, not for joy. 
Joy has nothing, nothing but the old way of tears, 
which is just a contradiction. And maybe, after 
all, she was right. I’ll go to my room and weep 
for thankfulness, and lightheartedness, and joy.” 

“Oh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, coming in, “gang 
softly, gang softly I You’re more sure than any 
mortal person has a right to be.” 

“Ye old unbeliever,” cried Miss Bethune, 
pausing in the midst of her sob. “What has 
mortality to do with evidence? It would be just 
as true if I were to die to-morrow, for that 
matter.” 

“Eh, mem,” cried Gilchrist again, “ye’re 
awfu easy to please in the way of evidence. 
What do you call evidence ? A likeness ye think 
ye see, but I canna; and there’s naething in a 


A House in Bloomsbury, 125 

likeness. Miss Dora is no more like her papaw 
than me, there is nothing to be lippened to in the 
like of that. And then the age—that would 
maybe be about the same, I grant ye that, so 
much as it comes to; and a name that is no' the 
right name, but a kind of an approach to it.” 

You are a bonnie person,” cried Miss Bethune, 
‘‘ to take authority upon you about names, and 
never to think of the commonest old Scotch cus¬ 
tom, that the son drops or turns the other way the 
name the father has taken to his own. I hope I 
know better! If nothing had ever happened, if 
the lad had been bred and trained at home, he 
would be Gordon, just as sure as he is Gordon 
now.” 

‘‘ Fm no’ a person of quality, mem,” said Gil¬ 
christ, holding her ground. I have never set up 
for being wan of the gentry : it would ill become 
me, being just John Gilchrist the smith’s daughter, 
and your servant-woman, that has served you this 
five and twenty years. But there are as many 
Gordons in Aberdeen as there are kirk steeples in 
this weary London town.” 

Miss Bethune made an impatient gesture. 
‘^You’re a sagacious person, Gilchrist, altogether, 
and might be a ruling elder if you were but a 
man : but I think perhaps I know what’s in it as 
well as you do, and if I’m satisfied that a thing is, 
I will not yield my faith, as you might know by 
this time, neither to the Lord President himself, 
nor even to you.” 

Eh, bless me, mem, but I ken that weel I ” 
cried Gilchrist; and if I had thought you were 


126 A House in Bloomsbury, 

taking it on that high line, never word would 
have come out of my mouth/’ 

‘‘ I am taking it on no high line—but I see 
what is for it as well as what is against it. I have 
kept my head clear,” said Miss Bethune. “ On 
other occasions, I grant you, I may have let my¬ 
self go: but in all this I have been like a judge, 
and refused to listen to the voice in my own 
heart But it was there all the time, though I 
crushed it down. How can the like of you un¬ 
derstand ? You’ve never felt a baby’s cry go into 
the very marrow of your bones. I’ve set the 
evidence all out, and pled the cause before my 
own judgment, never listening one word to the 
voice in my heart.” Miss Bethune spoke with 
greater and greater vehemence, but here paused 
to calm herself. “The boy that was carried off 
would have been twenty-five on the eighteenth of 
next month (as well you know), and this boy is 
just on five and twenty, he told me with his own 
lips; and his father told him with his dying 
breath that he had a mother living. He had the 
grace to do that! Maybe,” said Miss Bethune, 
dropping her voice, which had again risen in ex¬ 
citement, “ he was a true penitent when it came 
to that. I wish no other thing. Much harm and 
misery, God forgive him, has he wrought; but I 
wish no other thing. It would have done my 
heart good to think that his was touched and 
softened at the last, to his Maker at least, if no 
more.” 

“ Oh, mem, the one would go with the other, 
if what you think is true.” 


A House m Bloomsbury. 127 

‘‘No/’ said Miss Bethune, shutting her lips 
tight, “no, there’s no necessity. If it had been 
so what would have hindered him to give the boy 
chapter and verse ? Her name is So-and-so, you 
will hear of her at such a place. But never that 
—never that, though it would have been so easy! 
Only that he had a mother living, a mother that 
the guardian man and the lad himself divined 
must have been a-Do you not call that evi¬ 

dence?” cried Miss Bethune, with a harsh triumph. 
“ Do you not divine our man in that? Oh, but I 
see him as clear as if he had signed his name.” 

“ Dear mem,” cried Gilchrist, with a “tchick, 
tchick,” of troubled sympathy and spectatorship, 
“ you canna wish he had been a true penitent and 
yet think of him like that.” 

“ And who are you to lay down the law and 
say what I can do ? ” cried the lady. She added, 
with a wave of her hand and her head: “We’ll 
not argue that question : but if there ever was an 
action more like the man!—just to give the hint 
and clear his conscience, but leave the woman’s 
name to be torn to pieces by any dozen in the 
place! If that is not evidence, I don’t know 
what evidence is.” 

Gilchrist could say nothing in reply. She 
shook her head, though whether in agreement or 
in dissidence it would have been difficult to tell, 
and folded hem upon hem on her apron, with her 
eyes fixed upon that, as if it had been the most 
important of work. “ I was wanting to speak,” 
she said, “ when you had a moment to listen to 
me, about two young folk.” 



128 A House in Bloomsbury, 

“What two young folk?” Miss Bethunes 
eyes lighted up with a gleam of soft light, her 
face grew tender in every line. “ But Dora is too 
young, she is far too young for anything of the 
land,” she said. 

“ Eh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, with a mingling 
of astonishment, admiration, and pity, “can ye 
think of nothing but yon strange young man ? ” 

“ I am thinking of nothing but the bairn, the 
boy that was stolen away before he knew his right 
hand from his left, and now is come home.” 

“Aweel, aweel,” said Gilchrist, “we will just 
have to put up with it, as we have put up with it 
before. And sooner or later her mind will come 
back to what’s reasonable and true. I was 
speaking not of the young gentleman, or of any 
like him, but of the two who were up in the attics 
that you were wanting to save, if save them ye 
can. They are just handless creatures, the one 
and the other ; but the woman’s no’ an ill person, 
poor thing, and would do well if she knew the 
way. And a baby coming, and the man just a 
weirdless, feckless, ill man.” 

“ He cannot help it if he is ill, Gilchrist.” 

“ Maybe no’,” said Gilchrist cautiously. “ I’m 
never just so sure of that; but, anyway, he’s a 
delicate creature, feared for everything, and for 
a Christian eye upon him, which is the worst 
of all; and wherefore we should take them upon 
our shoulders, folk that we have nothing to do 
with, a husband and wife, and the family that’s 
coming-” 

“ Oh, woman,” said her mistress, “ if they 



A House in Bloomsbury, 129 

have got just a step out of the safe way in the 
beginning, is that not reason the more for helping 
them back? And how can I ever know what 
straits he might have been put to, and his mother 
ignorant, and not able to help him ? ” 

“ Eh, but Tm thankful to hear you say that 
again ! ” Gilchrist cried. 

“Not that I can ever have that fear now, for 
a finer young man, or a more sweet ingenuous 
look! But no credit to any of us, Gilchrist. I’m 
thankful to those kind people that have brought 
him up ; but it will always be a pain in my heart 
that I have had nothing to do with the training of 
him, and will never be half so much to him as that 
—that lady, who is in herself a poor, weakly 
woman, if I may say such a word.” 

“ It is just a very strange thing,” said Gilchrist, 
“ that yon lady is as much taken up about our 
Miss Dora as you are, mem, about the young lad.” 

“ Ah! ” said Miss Bethune, with a nod of her 
head, “but in a different way. Her mother’s 
sister—very kind and very natural, but oh, how 
different! I am to contrive to take Dora to see 
her, for I fear she is not long for this world, 
Gilchrist. The young lad, as you call him, will 

soon have nobody to look to but-” 

“ Mem ! ” cried Gilchrist, drawing herself up, 
and looking her mistress sternly in the face. 

Miss Bethune confronted her angrily for a 
moment, then coloured high, and flung down, as 
it were, her arms. “No, no!” she cried—“no, 
you are unjust to me, as you have been many 
times before. I am not glad of her illness, poor 
9 



130 A House in Bloomslmry. 

thing. God forbid it! I am not exulting, as you 
think, that she will be out of my way. Oh, 
Gilchrist, do you think so little of me—a woman 
you have known this long, long lifetime—as to 
believe that ? ” 

“ Eh, mem,” said Gilchrist, “ when you and 
me begin to think ill of each other, the world will 
come to an end. We ken each ither .far too well 
for that. Ye may scold me whiles when I little 
deserve it, and I put a thing upon you for a 
minnit that is nae blame of yours; but na, na, 
there is nae misjudging possible between you 
and me.” 

It will be seen that Gilchrist was very cautious 
in the confession of faith just extorted. She was 
no flatterer. She knew of what her mistress was 
capable better than that mistress herself did, and 
had all her weaknesses on the tips of her fingers. 
But she had no intention of discouraging that 
faulty but well-beloved woman. She went on in 
indulgent, semi-maternal tones: “You’ve had a 
great deal to excite you and trouble you, and in 
my opinion it would do ye a great deal of good, 
and help ye to get back to your ordinary, if you 
would just put everything else away, and consider 
with me what was to be done for thae two feckless 
young folk. If the man Is not put to do anything, 
he will be in more trouble than ever, or I’m no 
judge.” 

“ And It might have been him! ” said Miss 
Bethune to herself—the habitual utterance which 
had inspired so many acts of charity. “ I think 
you are maybe right, Gilchrist,” she added; “it 


A House in Bloomsbury. 131 

will steady me, and do me good. Run downstairs 
and see if the doctor is in. He knows more about 
him than we do, and we’ll just have a good con¬ 
sultation and see what is the best to be done.” 

The doctor was in, and came directly, and 
there was a very anxious consultation about the 
two young people, to whose apparently simple, 
commonplace mode of life there had come so 
sudden an interruption. Dr. Roland had done 
more harm than good by his action in the matter. 
He confessed that had he left things alone, and 
not terrified the young coward on the verge of 
crime, the catastrophe might perhaps, by more 
judicious ministrations, have been staved off. 
Terror of being found out is not always a preserva¬ 
tive, it sometimes hurries on the act which it ought 
to prevent; and the young man who had been risk¬ 
ing his soul in petty peculations which he might 
have made up for, fell over the precipice into a 
great one in sheer cowardice, when the doctor’s 
keen eye read him, and made him tremble. Dr. 
Roland took blame to himself. He argued that 
it was of no use trying to find Hesketh another 
situation. “He has no character, and no one 
will take him without a character : or if some 
Quixote did, on your word, Miss Bethune, or 
mine, who are very little to be trusted in such a 
case, the unfortunate wretch would do the same 
again. It’s not his fault, he cannot help himself. 
His grandfather, or perhaps a more distant rela- 


“ Do not speak nonsense to me, doctor, for I 
will not listen to it,” said Miss Bethune. “ When 



132 A House in Bloomsbury. 

there’s a poor young wife in the case, and a baby 
coming, how dare you talk about the fool’s grand¬ 
father ? ” 

“ Mem and sir,” said Gilchrist, if you would 
maybe listen for a moment to me. My mistress, 
she has little confidence in my sense, but I have 
seen mony a thing happen in my day, and twenty 
years’ meddlin’ and mellin’ with poor folk under 
her, that is always too ready with her siller, 
makes ye learn if ye were ever sae silly. Now, 
here is what I would propose. He’s maybe more 
feckless than anything worse. He will get no 
situation without a character, and it will not do 
for you—neither her nor you, sir, asking your 
pardon—to make yourselves caution for a silly 
gowk like yon. But set him up some place in a 
little shop of his ain. He’ll no cheat himsel’, and 
the wife she can keep an eye on him. If it’s in 
him to do weel, he’ll do weel, or at least we’ll see 
if he tries; and if no’, in that case ye’ll ken just 
what you will lose. That is what I would advise, 
if you would lippen to me, though I am not saying 
I am anything but a stupid person, and often told 
so,” Gilchrist said. 

‘‘It is not a bad idea, however,” said Dr. 
Roland. 

“ Neither it is. But the hussy, to revenge 
herself on me like that! ” her mistress cried. 


CHAPTER XII. 


Young Gordon left the house in Bloomsbury after 
he had delivered the message which was the 
object of his visit, but which he had forgotten in 
the amusement of seeing Dora, and the interest of 
these new scenes which had so suddenly opened 
up in his life. His object had been to beg that 
Miss Bethune would visit the lady for whom it 
had been his previous object to obtain an entrance 
into the house in which Dora was. Mrs. Bristow 
was ill, and could" not go again, and she wanted to 
see Dora’s friend, who could bring Dora herself, 
accepting the new acquaintance for the sake of the 
child on whom her heart was set, but whom for 
some occult reason she would not call to her in 
the more natural way. Gordon did not believe in 
occult reasons. He had no mind for mysteries ; 
and was fully convinced that whatever quarrel 
there might have been, no man would be so 
ridiculously vindictive as to keep his child apart 
from a relation, her mother’s sister, who was so 
anxious to see her. 

But he was the kindest-hearted youth in the 
world, and though he smiled at these mysteries he 
yet respected them in the woman who had been 
everything to him in his early life, his guardian’s 
wife, whom he also called aunt in the absence of 
any other suitable title. She liked that sort of 


134 ^ House in Bloomsbury. 

thing—to make mountains of molehills, and to get 
over them with great expenditure of strategy and 
sentiment, when he was persuaded she might have 
marched straight forward and found no difficulty. 
But it was her way, and it had always been his 
business to see that she had her way and was 
crossed by nobody. He was so accustomed to her 
in all her weaknesses that he accepted them 
simply as the course of nature. Even her illness 
did not alarm or trouble him. She had been deli¬ 
cate since ever he could remember. From the 
time when he entered upon those duties of son or 
nephew which dated so far back in his life, he had 
always been used to make excuses to her visitors 
on account of her delicacy, her broken health, her 
inability to bear the effects of the hot climate. 
This was her habit, as it was the habit of some 
women to ride and of some to drive ; and as it 
was the habit of her household to accept whatever 
she did as the only things for her to do, he had 
been brought up frankly in that faith. 

His own life, too, had always appeared very 
simple and natural to Harry, though perhaps it 
scarcely seemed so to the spectator. His child¬ 
hood had been passed with his father, who was 
more or less of an adventurer, and who had ac¬ 
customed his son to ups and downs which he was 
too young to heed, having always his wants at¬ 
tended to, and somebody to play with, whatever 
happened. Then he had been transferred to the 
house of his guardian on a footing which he was 
too young to inquire into, which was indeed the 
simple footing of a son, receiving everything from 


A House in Bloomsbury. 135 

his new parents, as he had received everything 
from his old. To find on his guardian’s death 
that he had nothing, that no provision was made 
for him, was something of a shock; as had been 
the discovery on his twenty-first birthday that his 
guardian was simply his benefactor, and had no 
trust in respect to him. It came over Harry like 
a cloud on both occasions that he had no pro¬ 
fession, no way of making his own living; and 
that a state of dependence like that in which he 
had been brought up could not continue. But 
the worst time in the world to break the link 
which had subsisted so long, or to take from his 
aunt, as he called her, the companion upon whom 
she leant for everything, was at the moment when 
her husband was gone, and there was nobody else 
except a maid to take care of her helplessness. 
He could not do this ; he was as much bound to 
her, to provide for all her wants, and see that she 
missed nothing of her wonted comforts; nay, 
almost more than if he had been really her son. 
If it had not been for his easy nature, the light 
heart which goes with perfect health, great sim¬ 
plicity of mind, and a thoroughly generous dis¬ 
position, young Gordon had enough of uncertainty 
in his life to have made him very serious, if not 
unhappy. But, as a matter of fact, he was 
neither. He took the days as they came, as only 
those can do who are to that manner born. When 
he thought on the subject, he said to himself that 
should the worst come to the worst, a young 
fellow of his age, with the use of his hands and a 
head on his shoulders, could surely find some- 


136 A House in Bloomsbury, 

thing to do, and that he would not mind what 
it was. 

This was very easy to say, and Gordon was 
not at all aware what the real difficulties are in 
finding something to do. But had he known 
better, it would have done him no good ; and his 
ignorance, combined as it was with constant 
occupations of one kind or another, was a kind of 
bliss. There was a hope, too, in his mind, that 
merely being in England would mend matters. It 
must open some mode of independence for him. 
Mrs. Bristow w^ould settle somewhere, buy a 
“ place,” an estate, as it had always been the 
dream of her husband to do, and so give him 
occupation. Something would come of it that 
would settle the question for him ; the mere 
certainty in his mind of this cleared away all 
clouds, and made the natural brightness of his 
temperature more assured than ever. 

This young man had no education to speak of. 
He had read innumerable books, which do not 
count for very much in that way. He had, how¬ 
ever, been brought up in what was supposed “the 
best ” of society, and he had the advantage of 
that, which is no small advantage. He was at 
his ease in consequence, wherever he went, not 
supposing that any one looked down on him, or 
that he could be refused admittance anywhere. 
As he walked back with his heart at ease—full of 
an amused pleasure in the thought of Dora, whom 
he had known for years, and who had been, though 
he had never till to-day seen her, a sort of little 
playfellow in his life—walking westward from the 


A House in Bloomsbury. 137 

seriousness of Bloomsbury, through the long line of 
Oxford Street, and across Hyde Park to the great 
hotel in which Mrs. Bristow had established her¬ 
self, the young man, though he had not a penny, 
and was a mere colonial, to say the best of him, 
felt himself returning to a more congenial atmo¬ 
sphere, the region of ease and leisure, and beauti¬ 
ful surroundings, to which he had been born. He 
had not any feature of the man of fashion, yet 
he belonged instinctively to the jeunesse dorde 
wherever he went. He went along, swinging his 
cane, with a relief in his mind to be delivered 
from the narrow and noisy streets. He had been 
accustomed all his life to luxury, though of a 
different kind from that of London, and he smiled 
at the primness and respectability of Bloomsbury 
by instinct, though he had no right to do so. He 
recognised the difference of the traffic in Picca¬ 
dilly, and distinguished between that great 
thoroughfare and the other with purely intuitive 
discrimination. Belgravia was narrow and formal 
to the Southerner, but yet it was different. All 
these intuitions were in him, he could not tell how. 

He went back to his aunt with the pleasure of 
having something to say which he knew would 
please her. Dora, as has been said, had been 
their secret between them for many years. He 
had helped to think of toys and pretty trifles to 
send her, and the boxes had been the subject of 
many a consultation, calling forth tears from Mrs. 
Bristow, but pure fun to the young man, who 
thought of the unknown recipient as of a little 
sister whom he had never seen. He meant to 


138 A House in Bloomsbury. 

please the kind woman who had been a mother to 
him, by telling her about Dora, how pretty she 
was, how tall, how full of character, delightful and 
amusing to behold, how she was half angry with 
him for knowing so much of her, half pleased, 
how she flashed from fun to seriousness, from 
kindness to quick indignation, and on the whole 
disapproved of him, but only in a way that was 
amusing, that he was not afraid of. Thus he 
went in cheerful, and intent upon making the 
invalid cheerful too. 

A hotel is a hotel all the world over, a place 
essentially vulgar, commonplace, venal, the tra¬ 
vesty of a human home. This one, however, was 
as stately as it could be, with a certain size about 
the building, big stairs, big rooms, at the end of 
one of which he found his patroness lying, in an 
elaborate dressing-gown, on a large sofa, with the 
vague figure of a maid floating about in the semi¬ 
darkness. The London sun in April is not gener¬ 
ally violent; but all the blinds were down, the cur¬ 
tains half drawn over the windows, and the room 
so deeply shadowed that even young Gordon’s 
sharp eyes coming out of the keen daylight did 
not preserve him from knocking against one piece 
of furniture after another as he made his way to 
the patient’s side. 

“Well, Harry dear, is she coming?” a faint 
voice said. 

“ I hope so, aunt. She was sorry to know you 
were ill. I told her you were quite used to being 
ill, and always patient over it. Are things going 
any better to-day ? ” 


A House in Bloomsbury. 139 

“They will never be better, Harry.” 

“ Don’t say that. They have been worse a 
great many times, and then things have always 
come round a little.” 

“He doesn’t believe me, Miller. That is what 
comes of health like mine ; nobody will believe 
that I am worse now than I have ever been before.” 
Gordon patted the thin hand that lay on the bed. 
He had heard these words many times, and he was 
not alarmed by them. 

“This lady is rather a character,” he said; 
“she will amuse you. She is Scotch, and she is 
rather strong-minded, and-” 

“ I never could bear strong-minded women,” 
cried the patient with some energy. “ But what 
do I care whether she is Scotch or Spanish, or 
what she is ? Besides that, she has helped me 
already, and all I want is Dora. Oh, Harry, did 
you see Dora ?—my Dora, my little girl! And so 
tall, and so well grown, and so sweet! And to 
think that I cannot have her, cannot see her, now 
that I am going to die! ” 

“Why shouldn’t you have her?” he said in 
his calm voice. “Her father is better; and no 
man, however unreasonable, would prevent her 
coming to see her own relation. You don’t under¬ 
stand, dear aunt. You won’t believe that people 
are all very like each other, not so cruel and hard¬ 
hearted as you suppose. You would not be unkind 
to a sick person, why should he ?” 

“Oh, it’s different—very different!” the sick 
woman said. 

“Why should it be different? A quarrel that 



140 A House in Bloomsbury. 

is a dozen years old could never be so bitter as 
that.” 

“ It is you who don’t understand. I did him 
harm—oh, such harm! Never, never could he 
forgive me 1 I never want him to hear my name. 
And to ask Dora from him—oh no, no! Don’t 
do it, Harry—not if I was at my last breath ! ” 

“If you ever did him harm as you say— 
though I don’t believe you ever did any one harm 
—that is why you cannot forgive him. Aunt, 
you may be sure he has forgiven you.” 

“ I—I—forgive ? Oh, never, never had I any¬ 
thing to forgive—never! I—oh if you only knew ! 

“ I wouldn’t say anything to excite her, Mr. 
Harry,” said the maid. “ She isn’t so well, 
really ; she’s very bad, as true as can be. I’ve 
sent for the doctor.” 

“ Yes, tell him ! ” cried the poor lady eagerly ; 
“tell him that you have never seen me so ill. 
Tell him. Miller, that I’m very bad, and going to 
die! ” 

“We’ll wait and hear what the doctor says, 
ma’am,” said the maid cautiously. 

“ But Dora, Harry—oh, bring her, bring her! 
How am I to die without my Dora ? Oh, bring 
her! Ask this lady—I don’t mind her being 
strong-minded or anything, if she will bring my 
child. Harry, you must steal her away, if he will 
not let her come. I have a right to her. It is— 
it is her duty to come to me when I am going to 
die! ” 

“ Don’t excite her, sir, for goodness’ sake ; 
promise anything,” whispered the maid. 


A House in Bloomsbury. 141 

‘‘I will, aunt. I’ll run away with her. I’ll 
have a carriage with a couple of ruffians to wait 
round the corner, and I’ll throw something over 
her head to stifle her cries, and then we’ll carry 
her away.” 

“ It isn’t any laughing matter,” she said, re¬ 
covering her composure a little. “ If you only 
knew, Harry! But I couldn’t, I couldn’t tell you 
—or any one. Oh, Harry, my poor boy, you’ll 
find out a great many things afterwards, and per¬ 
haps you’ll blame me. I know you’ll blame me. 
But remember I was always fond of you, and 
always kind to you all the same. You won’t 
forget that, however badly you may think of me. 
Oh, Harry, my dear, my dear!” 

“ Dear aunt, as if there could ever be any 
question of blame from me to you! ” he said, 
kissing her hand. 

“ But there will be a question. Everybody 
will blame me, and you will be obliged to do it 
too, though it goes against your kind heart. I 
seem to see everything, and feel what’s wrong, 
and yet not be able to help it. I’ve always been 
like that,” she said, sobbing. Whatever I did. 
I’ve always known it would come to harm ; but 
I’ve never been able to stop it, to do different. 
I’ve done so many, many things! Oh, if I could 
go back and begin different from the very first! 
But I shouldn’t. I am just as helpless now as 
then. And I know just how you will look, Harry, 
and try not to believe, and try not to say any¬ 
thing against me-” 

“If you don’t keep quiet, ma’am, I’ll have to 



142 A House in Bloomsbury. 

go and leave you ! and a nurse is what you will 
get—a nurse out of the hospital, as will stand no 
nonsense.” 

“Oh, Miller, just one word! Harry, promise 
me you’ll think of what I said, and that you will 
not blame-” 

“Never,” he said, rising from her side. “I 
acquit you from this moment, aunt. You can 
never do anything that will be evil in my eyes. 
But is not the room too dark, and don’t you mean 
to have any lunch ? A little light and a little 
cutlet, don’t you think. Miller? No? Well, I 
suppose you know best, but you’ll see that is 
what the doctor will order. I’m going to get 
mine, anyhow, for I’m as hungry as a hunter. 
Blame you? Is it likely?” he said, stooping to 
kiss her. 

Notwithstanding his affectionate fidelity, he 
was glad to be free of the darkened room and 
oppressive atmosphere and troubled colloquy. 
To return to ordinary daylight and life was a 
relief to him. But he had no very serious 
thoughts, either about the appeal she had made 
to him or her condition. He had known her as 
ill and as hysterical before. When she was ill 
she was often emotional, miserable, fond of refer¬ 
ring to mysterious errors in her past. Harry 
thought he knew very well what these errors 
were. He knew her like the palm of his hand, 
as the French say. He knew the sort of things 
she would be likely to do, foolish things, incon¬ 
siderate, done in a hurry—done, very likely, as 
she said, with a full knowledge that they ought 



A Hotise in BLoomsbtiry, 143 

not to be done, yet that she could not help it. 
Poor little aunt! he could well believe in any sort 
of silly thing, heedless, and yet not altogether 
heedless either, disapproved of in her mind even 
while she did it. Our children know us better 
than any other spectators know us. They know 
the very moods in which we are likely to do 
wrong. What a good thing it is that with that 
they love us all the same, more or less, as the case 
may be! And that their eyes, though so terribly 
clear-sighted, are indulgent too; or, if not indul¬ 
gent, yet are ruled by the use and wont, the habit 
of us, and of accepting us, whatever we may be. 
Young Gordon knew exactly, or thought, he knew, 
what sort of foolish things she might have done, 
or even yet might be going to do. Her con¬ 
science was evidently very keen about this Mr. 
Mannering, this sister s husband, as he appeared 
to be; perhaps she had made mischief, not mean¬ 
ing it and yet half meaning it, between him and 
his wife, and could not forgive herself, or hope to 
be forgiven. Her own husband had been a grave 
man, very loving to her, yet very serious with 
her, and he knew that there had never been men¬ 
tion of Dora between these two. Once, he re¬ 
membered, his guardian had seen the box ready 
to be despatched, and had asked no questions, 
but looked for a moment as if he would have 
pushed it out of the way with his foot. Perhaps 
he had disapproved of these feeble attempts to 
make up to the sister s child for harm done to her 
mother. Perhaps he had felt that the wrong was 
unforgiveable, whatever it was. He had taken it 


144 ^ House in Bloomsbury, 

for granted that after his death his wife would go 
home ; and Harry remembered a wistful strange 
look which he cast upon her when he was dying. 
But the young man gave himself a little shake to 
throw off these indications of a secret which he 
did not know. His nature, as had been said, was 
averse to secrets; he refused to have anything to 
do with a mystery. Everything in which he was 
concerned was honest and open as the day. He 
did not dwell on the fact that he had a mystery 
connected with himself, and v/as in the curious 
circumstance of having a mother whom he did 
not know. It was very odd, he admitted, when 
he thought of it; but as he spent his life by the 
side of a woman who was in all respects exactly 
like his mother to him, perhaps it is not so 
wonderful that his mdnd strayed seldom to that 
thought. He shook everything off as he went 
downstairs, and sat down to luncheon with the 
most hearty and healthy appetite in the world. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


Dora,’* said Mr. Mannering, half raising his 
head from the large folio which had come from 
the old book dealer during his illness, and which, 
in these days of his slow convalescence, had 
occupied much of his time. After he had spoken 
that word he remained silent for some time, his 
head slightly raised, his shoulders bent over the 
big book. Then he repeated “ Dora ” again. 
“ Do you think,” he said, “ you could carry one of 
these volumes as far as Fiddler’s, and ask if he 
would take it back ? ” 

“ Take it back! ” Dora cried in surprise. 

“ You can tell him that I do not find it as in¬ 
teresting as I expected—but no; for that might 
do it harm, and it is very interesting. You might 
say our shelves are all filled up with big books, 
and that I have really no room for it at present, 
which,” he added, looking anxiously up into her face, 
“is quite true ; for, you remember, when I was so 
foolish as to order it, we asked ourselves how it 
would be possible to find a place for it ? But no, 
no,” he said, “these are inventions, and I see your 
surprise in your face that I should send you with 
a message that is not genuine. It is true enough, 
you know, that I am much slackened in the work 
I wanted this book for. I am slackened in every¬ 
thing. I doubt if I can take up any piece of work 
(145) 10 


146 A House in Bloomsbury. 

again to do any good. I’m old, you see, to have 
such a long illness,” he said, looking at her almost 
apologetically; “and, unless it had been with an 
idea of work, I never could have had any justifi¬ 
cation in ordering such an expensive book as 
this.” 

“You never used to think of that, father,” 
Dora said. 

“No, I never used to think of that ; but I 
ought to have done so. I’m afraid I’ve been 
very extravagant. I could always have got it, 
and consulted it as much as I pleased at the 
Museum. It is a ridiculous craze I have had for 
having the books in my own possession. Many 
men cannot understand it. Williamson, for 
instance. He says: ‘In your place I would 
never buy a book. Why, you have the finest 
library in the world at your disposal.’ And it’s 
quite true. There could not be a more ridiculous 
extravagance on my part, and pride, I suppose to 
be able to say I had it.” 

■ “ I don’t think that’s the case at all,” cried 
Dora. “What do you care for, father, except 
your library? You never go anywhere, you have 
no amusements like other people. You don’t 
go into society, or go abroad, or—anything that 
the other people do.” 

“ That is true enough,” he said, with a little 
gleam of pleasure. Then, suddenly taking her 
hand as she stood beside him : “ My poor child, 
you say that quite simply, without thinking what 
a terrible accusation it would be if it went on,—a 
sacrifice of your young life to my old one, and 


A House in Bloomsbury. 147 

forgetfulness of all a girl’s tastes and wishes. 
We’ll try to put that right at least, Dora,” he 
said, with a slight quiver in his lip, “ in the future 
—if there is any future for me.” 

^‘Father I” she said indignantly, “as if I 
didn’t like the books, and was not more proud 

of your work that you are doing-” 

“ And which never comes to anything,” he 
interjected, sadly shaking his head. 

-than of anything else in the world! I 

am very happy as I am. I have no tastes or 
pleasures but what are yours. I never have 
wanted anything that you did not get for me. 
You should see,” cried Dora, with a laugh, 
“ what Janie and Molly think downstairs. They 
think me a princess at the least, with nothing to 
do, and all my fine clothes! ” 

“Janie and Molly!” he said,—“Janie and 
Molly! And these are all that my girl has to 
compare herself with—the landlady’s orphan 
granddaughters ! You children make your arrows 
very sharp without knowing it. But it shall be 
so no more. Dora, more than ever I want you to 
go to Fiddler’s ; but you shall tell him what is the 
simple truth—that I have had a long illness, 
which has been very expensive, and that I cannot 
afford any more expensive books. He might 
even, indeed, be disposed to buy back some that 
we have. That is one thing,” he added, with 
more animation, “all the books are really worth 
their price. I have always thought they would be 
something for you, whether you sold them or 
kept them, when I am gone. Do you think you 



148 A House in Bloomsbury. 

could carry one of them as far as Fiddler’s, Dora ? 
They are in such excellent condition, and it would 
show him no harm had come to them. One may 
carry a book anywhere, even a young lady may. 
And it is not so very heavy.” 

“It is no weight at all,” cried Dora, who 
never did anything by halves. “ A little too big 
for my pocket, father; but I could carry it any¬ 
where. As if I minded carrying a book, or even 
a parcel! I like it—it looks as if one had really 
something to do.” 

She went out a few minutes after, lightly, 
with great energy and animation, carrying under 
one arm the big book as if it had been a feather¬ 
weight. It was a fine afternoon, and the big 
trees in the Square were full of the rustle and 
breath of life—life as vigorous as if their foliage 
waved in the heart of the country and not in 
Bloomsbury. There had been showers in the 
morning; but now the sun shone warm, and as it 
edged towards the west sent long rays down the 
cross streets, making them into openings of pure 
light, and dazzling the eyes of the passers-by. 
Dora was caught in this illumination at every 
street corner, and turned her face to it as she 
crossed the opening, not afraid, for either eyes or 
complexion, of that glow “ angry and brave 
The great folio, with its worn corners and its 
tarnished gilding, rather added to the effect of 
her tall, slim, young figure, strong as health and 
youth could make it, with limbs a little too long, 
and joints a little too pronounced, as belonged to 
her age. She carried her head lightly as a flower, 


149 


A House in Bloomsbury. 

her step was free and light; she looked, as she 
said, “as if she had something to do,” and was 
wholly capable of doing it, which is a grace the 
more added, not unusually in these days, to the 
other graces of early life in the feminine subject. 
But it is not an easy thing to carry a large folio 
under your arm. After even a limited stretch of 
road, the lamb is apt to become a sheep : and to 
shift such a cumbrous volume from one arm to 
another is not an easy matter either, especially 
while walking along the streets. Dora held on 
her way as long as she could, till her wrist was 
like to break, and her shoulder to come out of its 
socket. Neither she nor her father had in the 
least realised what the burden was. Then she 
turned it over with difficulty in both arms, and 
transferred it to the other side, speedily reducing 
the second arm to a similar condition, while the 
first had as yet barely recovered. 

It is not a very long way from the corner of 
the Square to those delightful old passages full 
of old book-shops, which had been the favourite 
pasturage ol Mr. Mannering, and where Dora had 
so often accompanied her father. On ordinary 
occasions she thought the distance to Fiddler’s no 
more than a few steps, but to-day it seemed miles 
long. And she was too proud to give in, or to 
go into a shop to rest, while it did not seem safe 
to trust a precious book, and one that she was 
going to give back to the dealer, to a passing boy. 
She toiled on accordingly, making but slow pro¬ 
gress, and very much subdued by her task, her 
cheeks flushed, and the tears in her eyes only kept 


150 A House in Bloomsbury. 

back by pride, when she suddenly met walking 
quickly along, skimming the pavement with his 
light tread, the young man who had so wounded 
and paralysed her in Miss Bethune’s room, whom 
she had seen then only for the first time, but who 
had claimed her so cheerfully by her Christian 
name as an old friend. 

She saw him before he saw her, and her first 
thought v/as the quick involuntary one, that here 
was succour coming towards her ; but the second 
was not so cheerful. The second was, that this 
stranger would think it his duty to help her; that 
he would conceive criticisms,, even if he did not 
utter them, as to the mistake of entrusting her 
with a burden she was not equal to ; that he 
would assume more and more familiarity, perhaps 
treat her altogether as a little girl—talk again of 
the toys he had helped to choose, and all those 
injurious revolting particulars which had filled her 
with so much indignation on their previous meet' 
ing. The sudden rush and encounter of these 
thoughts distracting her mind when her body had 
need of all its support, made Dora’s limbs so 
tremble, and the light so go out of her eyes, that 
she found herself all at once unable to carry on 
her straight course, and awoke to the humiliating 
fact that she had stumbled to the support of the 
nearest area railing, that the book had slipped 
from under her tired arm, and that she was stand¬ 
ing there, very near crying, holding it up between 
the rail and her knee. 

“Why, Miss Dora!” cried that young man. 
He would have passed, had it not been for that 


A House in Bloomsbury. 151 

deplorable exhibition of weakness. But when 
his eye caught the half-ridiculous, wholly over¬ 
whelming misery of the slipping book, the knee 
put forth to save it, the slim figure bending over 
it, he was beside her in a moment. “ Give it to 
me,” he cried, suiting the action to the word, and 
taking it from her as it it had been a feather. 
Well, she had herself said it was a feather at first. 

Dora, relieved, shook her tired arms, 
straightened her figure, and raised her head; with 
all her pride coming back. 

‘‘ Oh, please never mind. I had only got it 
out of balance. I am quite, quite able to carry 
it,” she cried. 

“Are you going far? And will you let me 
walk with you? It was indeed to see you I was 
going—not without a commission.” 

“ To see me ? ” 

The drooping head was thrown back with a 
pride that was haughty and almost scornful. A 
princess could not have treated a rash intruder 
more completely de haul en bas. “To me ! what 
could you have to say to me ? ” the girl seemed to 
say, in the tremendous superiority of her sixteen 
years. 

The young man laughed a little—one is not 
very wise at five and twenty on the subject of 
girls, yet he had experience enough to be amused 
by these remnants of the child in this half-devel¬ 
oped maiden. “You are going this way?” he 
said, turning in the direction in which she had 
been going. “Then let me tell you while we 
walk. Miss Dora, you must remember this is 


152 A House in Bloomsbury. 

not all presumption or intrusion on my side. I 
come from a lady who has a right to send you a 
message.” 

“I did not say you were intrusive,” cried Dora, 
blushing for shame. 

^‘You only looked it,” said young Gordon; 
but you know that lady is my aunt too—at 
least, I have always called her aunt, for many, 
many years.” 

“Ought I to call her aunt?” Dora said. ‘O 
suppose so indeed, if she is my mother’s sister.” 

“ Certainly you should, and you have a right; 
but I only because she allows me, because they 
wished it, to make me feel no stranger in the 
house. My poor dear aunt is very ill—worse, 
they say, than she has ever been before.’^ 

“ Ill ?” Dora seemed to find no words except 
these interjections that she could say. 

I hope perhaps they may be deceived. The 
doctors don’t know her constitution. I think I 
have seen her just as bad and come quite round 
again. But even Miller is frightened : she may 
be worse than I think, and she has the greatest, 
the most anxious desire to see you, as she says, 
before she dies.” 

“ Dies ? ” cried Dora. “ But how can she die 
when she has only just come home ? ” 

“ That is what I feel, too,” cried the young 
man, with eagerness. “ But perhaps,” he added, 
“it is no real reason ; for doesn’t it often happen 
that people break down just at the moment when 
they come in sight of what they have wished for 
for years and years ? ” 


A House in Bloomsbury. 153 

I don’t know,” said Dora, recovering her 
courage. “ I have not heard of things so dread¬ 
ful as that. I can’t imagine that it could be per¬ 
mitted to be; for things don’t happen just by- 
chance, do they? They are,” she added quite 
inconclusively, “as father says, all in the day’s 
work.” 

“ I don’t know either,” said young Gordon ; 
but very cruel things do happen. However, 
there is nothing in the world she wishes for so 
much as you. Will you come to her ? I am sure 
that you have never been out of her mind for 
years. She used to talk to me about you. It was 
our secret between us two. I think that was the 
chief thing that made her take to me as she did, 
that she might have some one to speak to about 
Dora. I used to wonder what you were at first,— 
an idol, or a prodigy, or a princess.” 

“ You must have been rather disgusted when 
you found I was only a girl,” Dora cried, in spite 
of herself. 

He looked at her with a discriminative gaze, 
not uncritical, yet full of warm light that seemed 
to linger and brighten somehow upon her, and 
which,- though Dora was looking straight before 
her, without a glance to the right or left, or any 
possibility of catching his eye, she perceived, 
though without knowing how. 

“No,” he said,with a little embarrassed laugh, 
“quite the reverse, and always hoping that one 
day we might be friends.” 

Dora made no reply. For one thing they had 
now come (somehow the walk went much faster. 


154 A House in Bloomsbury. 

much more easily, when there was no big book to 
carry) to the passage leading to Holborn, a narrow 
lane paved with big flags, and with dull shops, prin¬ 
cipally book-shops, on either side, where Fiddler, 
the eminent old bookseller and collector, lived. 
Her mind had begun to be occupied by the 
question how to shake this young man off and 
discharge her commission, which was not an easy 
one. She hardly heard what he last said. She 
said to him hastily, “ Please give me back the 
book, this is where I am going,” holding out her 
hands for it. She added, “Thank you very 
much,” with formality, but yet not without 
warmth. 

“ Mayn’t I carry it in ?” He saw by her face 
that this request was distasteful, and hastened to 
add, “I’ll wait for you outside ; there are 
quantities of books to look at in the windows,” 
giving it back to her without a word. 

Dora was scarcely old enough to appreciate the 
courtesy and good taste of his action altogether, 
but she was pleased and relieved, though she 
hardly knew why. She went into the shop, very 
glad to deposit it upon the counter, but rather 
troubled in mind as to how she was to accomplish 
her mission, as she waited till Mr. Fiddler was 
brought to her from the depths of the cavern of 
books. He began to turn over the book with 
mechanical interest, thinking it something brought 
to him to sell, then woke up, and said sharply : 

Why, this is a book I sent to Mr. Mannering of 
the Museum a month ago”. 

“Yes,” said Dora, breathless, “and I am Mr. 


A House in Bloomsbury. 155 

Mannering’s daughter. He has been very ill, 
and he wishes me to ask if you would be so good 
as to take it back. It is not likely to be of so 
much use to him as he thought. It is not quite 
what he expected it to be.” 

“Not what he expected it to be? It is an 
extremely fine copy, in perfect condition, and I’ve 
been on the outlook for it to him for the past 
year.” 

“Yes, indeed,” said Dora, speaking like a 
bookman’s daughter, “even I can see it is a fine 
example, and my father would like to keep it. 
But—but—he has had a long illness, and it has 
been very expensive, and he might not be able to 
pay for it for a long time. He would be glad if 
you would be so very obliging as to take it back.” 

Then Mr. Fiddler began to look blank. He 
told Dora that two or three people had been after 
the book, knowing what a chance it was to get a 
specimen of that edition in such a perfect state, 
and how he had shut his ears to all fascinations, 
and kept it for Mr. Mannering. Mr. Mannering 
had indeed ordered the book. It was not a book 
that could be picked up from any ordinary collec¬ 
tion. It was one, as a matter of fact, which he 
himself would not have thought of buying on 
speculation, had it not been for a customer like 
Mr. Mannering. Probably it might lie for years 
on his hands, before he should have another 
opportunity of disposing of it. These arguments 
much intimidated Dora, who saw, but had not the 
courage to call his attention to, the discrepancy 
between the two or three people who had wanted 


156 A House in Bloomsbury. 

it, and the unlikelihood of any one wanting it 
again. 

The conclusion was, however, that Mr. Fiddler 
politely, but firmly, declined to take the book 
back. He had every confidence in Mr. Man- 
nering of the Museum. He had not the slightest 
doubt of being paid. The smile, with which he 
assured her of this, compensated the girl, who was 
so little more than a child, for the refusal of her 
request. Of course Mr. Mannering of the Museum 
would pay, of course everybody had confidence in 
him After her father s own depressed looks and 
anxiety, it comforted Dora’s heart to make sure 
in this way that nobody outside shared these 
fears. She put out her arms, disappointed, yet 
relieved, to take back the big book again. 

“ Have you left it behind you 1 ” cried young 
Gordon, who, lingering at the window outside, 
without the slightest sense of honour, had listened 
eagerly and heard a portion of the colloquy within. 

‘‘Mr. Fiddler will not take it back. He says 
papa will pay him sooner or later. He is going 
to send it It is no matter,” Dora said, with a 
little wave of her hand. 

“ Oh, let me carry it back,’^ cried the young 
man, with a sudden dive into his pocket, and 
evident intention in some rude colonial way of 
solving the question of the payment there and 
then. 

Dora drew herself up to the height of seven 
feet at least in her shoes. She waved him back 
from Mr. Fiddler’s door with a large gesture. 

“You may have known me for a long time,” 


A House in Bloomsbury. 157 

she said, “and you called me Dora, though I 
think it is a liberty; but I don’t know you, 
not even your name.” 

“ My name is Harry Gordon,” he said, with 
something between amusement and deference, yet 
a twinkle in his eye. 

Dora looked at him very gravely from head 
to foot, making as it were a restune of him and 
the situation. Then she gave forth her judgment 
reflectively, as of a thing which she had much 
studied. “It is not an ugly name,” she said, 
with a partially approving nod of her head. 


CHAPTER XIV. 


“ No, Mannering,” said Dr. Roland, ‘‘ I can’t say 
that you may go back to the Museum in a week. 

I don’t know when you will be up to going. I 
should think you had a good right to a long holi¬ 
day after working there for so many years.” 

“ Not so many years,” said Mr. Mannering, 
“since the long break which you know of, 
Roland.” 

“In the interest of science,” cried the doctor. 

The patient shook his head with a melancholy 
smile. “ Not in my own at least,” he said. 

“ Well, it is unnecessary to discuss that ques¬ 
tion. Back you cannot go, my good fellow, till 
you have recovered your strength to a very dif¬ 
ferent point from that you are at now. You can’t 
go till after you’ve had a change. At present 
you’re nothing but a bundle of tendencies ready 
to develop into anything bad that’s going. That 
must be stopped in the first place, and you must 
have sea air, or mountain air, or country air, 
whichever you fancy. I won’t be dogmatic about 
the kind, but the thing you must have.” 

“Impossible, impossible, impossible!” Man¬ 
nering had begun to cry out while the other was 
speaking. “ Why, man, you’re raving,” he said. 
“ I—so accustomed to the air of Bloomsbury, and 
that especially fine sort which is to be had at the 
(158) 


A House in Bloomshiry. 159 

Museum, that I couldn't breathe any other—I to 
have mountain air or sea air or country air! 
Nonsense! Any of them would stifle me in a 
couple of days.” 

“You will have your say, of course. And 
you are a great scientific gent, I’m aware; but 
you know as little about your own health and 
what it wants as this child with her message. 
Well, Janie, wha.t is it, you constant bother.^ 
Mr. Mannering ? Take it to Miss Bethune, or 
wait till Miss Dora comes back.” 

“ Please, sir, the gentleman is waiting, and he 
says he won’t go till he’s pyed.” 

“You little ass!” said the doctor. “What 
do you mean by coming with your ridiculous 
stories here ? ” 

Mannering stretched out his thin hand and 
took the paper. “ You see,” he said, with a faint 
laugh, “how right I was when I said I would 
have nothing to do with your changes of air. It 
is all that my pay will do to settle my bills, and 
no overplus for such vanities.” 

“Nonsense, Mannering! The money will be 
forthcoming when it is known to be necessary.” 

“From what quarter, I should be glad to hear? 
Do you think the Museum will grant me a pre¬ 
mium for staying away, for being of no use? Not 
very likely! I shall not be left in the lurch; they 
will grant me three months’ holiday, or even six 
months’ holiday, and my salary as usual. But we 
shall have to reduce our expenses, Dora and I, 
and to live as quietly as possible, instead of going 
off like millionaires to revel upon fresh tipples of 


i6o A House in Bloomsbury. 

fancy air. No, no, nothing of the kind. And, 
besides, I don’t believe in them. I have made 
myself, as the French say, to the air of Blooms¬ 
bury, and in that I shall live or die.” 

‘‘You don’t speak at all, my dear fellow, like 
the man of sense you are,” said the doctor. “For¬ 
tunately, I can carry things with a high hand. 
When I open my mouth let no patient venture to 
contradict. You are going away to the country 
now. If you don’t conform to my rules, I am not 
at all sure I may not go further, and ordain that 
there is to be no work for six months, a winter on 
the Riviera, and so forth. I have got all these 
pains and penalties in my hand.” 

“Better and better,” said Mannering, “a 
palace to live in, and a chef to cook for us, and 
our dinner off gold plate every day.” 

“ There is no telling what I may do if you 
put me to it,” Dr. Roland said, with a laugh. 
“But seriously, if it were my last word, you must 
get out of London. Nothing that you can do or 
say will save you from that.” 

“ We shall see,” said Mr. Mannering. “ The 
sovereign power of an empty purse does great 
wonders. But here is Dora back, and without the 
big book, I am glad to see. What did Fiddler say.^” 

“ I will tell you afterwards, father,” said Dora, 
developing suddenly a little proper pride. 

“Nonsense! You can tell me now—that he 
had two or three people in his pocket who would 
have bought it willingly if he had not reserved it 
for me, and that it was a book that nobody 
wanted, and would be a drug on his hands.” 


A House in Bloomsbury. i6i 

“ Oh, father, how clever you are! That was 
exactly what he said : and I did not point out 
that he was contradicting himself, for fear it should 
make him angry. But he did not mind me. He 
said he could trust Mr. Manneringof the Museum; 
he was quite sure he should get paid ; and he is 
sending it back by one of the young men, because 
it was too heavy for me.” 

‘‘My poor little girl! I ought to have known 
it would be too heavy for you.” 

“ Oh, never mind,” said Dora. “ I only 
carried it half the way. It was getting very heavy 
indeed, I will not deny, when I met Mr. Gordon, 
and he carried it for me to Fiddler’s shop.” 

“Who is Mr. Gordon.^” said Mr. Mannering, 
raising his head. 

“ He is a friend of Miss Bethune’s,” said Dora, 
with something of hesitation in her voice which 
struck her father’s ear. 

Dr. Roland looked very straight before him, 
taking care to make no comment, and not to 
meet Dora’s eye. There was a tacit understand¬ 
ing between them now on several subjects, which 
the invalid felt vaguely, but could not explain to 
himself. Fortunately, however, it had not even 
occurred to him that there was anything more 
remarkable in the fact of a young man, met at 
hazard, carrying Dora’s book for her, than if the 
civility had been shown to himself. 

“You see,’’ he said, “it is painful to have to 
make you aware of all my indiscretions, Roland. 
What has a man to do with rare editions, who 
has a small income and an only child like mine ? 

11 


i62 a House in Bloomsbury, 

The only thing is,” he added, with a short laugh, 
“they should bring their price when they come to 
the hammer,—that has always been my consola¬ 
tion.” 

“ They are not coming to the hammer just 
yet,” said the doctor. He possessed himself 
furtively, but carelessly, of the piece of paper on 
the table—the bill which, as Janie said, was 
wanted by a gentleman waiting downstairs. 
“You just manage to get over this thing, Manner- 
ing,” he said, in an ingratiating tone, “and I’ll 
promise you a long bill of health and plenty of 
time to make up all your lost way. You don’t 
live in the same house with a doctor for nothing. 
1 have been waiting for this for a long time. I 
could have told Vereker exactly what course it 
would take if he hadn’t been an ass, as all these 
successful men are. He did take a hint or two 
in spite of himself; for a profession is too much 
for a man, it gives a certain fictitious sense in 
some cases, even when he is an ass. Well, 
Mannering, of course I couldn’t prophesy what 
the end would be. You might have succumbed. 
With your habits, I thought it not unlikely.” 

“You cold-blooded practitioner! And what 
do you mean by my habits 1 I’m not a toper or 
a reveller by night.” 

“You are almost worse. You are a man of 
the Museum, drinking in bad air night and day, 
and never moving from your books when you can 
help it. It was ten to one against you ; but some 
of you smoke-dried, gas-scented fellows have the 
devil’s own constitution, and you’ve pulled through.” 


A House in Bloomsbury, 163 

“Yes,” said Mannering, holding up his thin 
hand to the light, and thrusting forth a long 
spindle-shank of a leg, “ I’ve pulled through—as 
much as is left of me. It isn’t a great deal to 
brag of.” 

“ Having done that, with proper care I don’t 
see why you shouldn’t have a long spell of health 
before you—as much health as a man can expect 
who despises all the laws of nature—and attain a 
very respectable age before you die.” 

“ Here’s promises! ” said Mannering. He 
paused and laughed, and then added in a lower 
tone: “ Do you think that’s so very desirable, 
after all ? ” 

“Most men like it,” said the doctor; “or, at 
least, think they do. And for you, who have 
Dora to think of-” 

“Yes, there’s Dora,” the patient said as if to 
himself. 

“ That being the case, you are not your own 
property, don’t you see? You have got to take 
care of yourself, whether you will or not. You 
have got to make life livable, now that it’s handed 
back to you. It’s a responsibility, like another. 
Having had it handed back to you, as I say, and 
being comparatively a young man—what are you, 
fifty?” 

“Thereabout; not what you would call the 
flower of youth.” 

“ But a very practical, not disagreeable age— 
good for a great deal yet, if you treat it fairly ; 
but, mind you, capable of giving you a great deal of 
annoyance, a great deal of trouble, if you don’t.” 



164 A House in Bloomsbury. 

“No more before the child,” said Mannering 
hastily. “We must cut our coat according to 
our cloth, but she need not be in all our secrets. 
What! turtle-soup again ? Am I to be made an 
alderman of in spite of myself? No more of 
this, Hal, if you love me,” he said, shaking his 
gaunt head at the doctor, who was already dis¬ 
appearing downstairs. 

Dr. Roland turned back to nod encouragingly 
to Dora, and to say : “All right, my dear ; keep it 
up! ” But his countenance changed as he turned 
away again, and when he had knocked and been 
admitted at Miss Bethune’s door, it was with a 
melancholy face, and a look of the greatest de¬ 
spondency, that he flung himself into the nearest 
chair. 

“ It will be all of no use,” he cried,—“of no 
use, if we can’t manage means and possibilities to 
pack them off somewhere. He will not hear of 
it! Wants to go back to the Museum next 
v/eek—in July !—and to go on in Bloomsbury all 
the year, as if he had not been within a straw’s 
breadth of his life.” 

“ I was afraid of that,” said Miss Bethune, 
shaking her head. 

“ He ought to go to the country now,” said 
the doctor, “then to the sea, and before the 
coming on of winter go abroad. That’s the only 
programme for him. He ought to be a year 
away. Then he might come back to the Museum 
like a giant refreshed, and probably write some 
book, or make some discovery, or do some scien¬ 
tific business, that would crown him with glory, 


A House in Bloomsbury. 165 

and cover all the expenses; but the obstinate 
beast will not see it. Upon my word!” cried 
Dr. Roland, “I wish there could be made a 
decree that only women should have the big 
illnesses; they have such faith in a doctor’s 
word, and such a scorn of possibilities : it always 
does them good to order them something that 
can’t be done, and then do it in face of everything 
—that’s what I should like for the good of the 
race.” 

“ I can’t say much for the good of the race,” 
said Miss Bethune; “ but you’d easily find some 
poor wretch of a woman that would do it for the 
sake of some ungrateful brute of a man.” 

“Ah, we haven’t come to that yet,” said the 
doctor regretfully ; “ the vicarious principle has 
not gone so far. If it had I daresay there would 
be plenty of poor wretches ready to bear their 
neighbours’ woes for a consideration. The simple 
rules of supply and demand would be enough to 
provide us proxies without any stronger senti¬ 
ment : but philosophising won’t do us any good ; 
it won’t coin money, or if it could, would not drop 
it into his pocket, which after all is the chief 
difficulty. He is not to be taken in any longer 
by your fictions about friendly offerings and cheap 
purchases. Here is a bill which that little anaemic 
nuisance Janie brought in, with word that a gentle¬ 
man was ‘ wyaiting ’ for the payment.” 

“We’ll send for the gentleman, and settle it,” 
said Miss Bethune quietly, “and then it can’t 
come up to shame us again.” 

The gentleman sent for turned up slowly, and 


166 A House in Bloomsbury. 

came in with reluctance, keeping his face as much 
as possible averted. He was, however, too easily 
recognisable to make this contrivance available. 

“ Why, Hesketh, have you taken service with 
Fortnum and Mason?” the doctor cried. 

“I’m in a trade protection office, sir,” said 
Hesketh. “ I collect bills for parties.” He 
spoke with his eyes fixed on a distant corner, 
avoiding as much as possible every glance. 

“In a trade protection office? And you 
mean to tell me that Fortnum and Mason, before 
even the season is over, collect their bills in this 
way ? ” 

“ They don’t have not to say so many 
customers in Bloomsbury, sir,” said the young 
man, with that quickly-conceived impudence 
which is so powerful a weapon, and so congenial 
to his race. 

“ Confound their insolence! I have a good 
mind to go myself and give them a bit of my 
mind,” cried Dr. Roland. “ Bloomsbury has 
more sense, it seems, than I gave it credit for, 
and your pampered tradesman more impu¬ 
dence.” 

“ I would just do that,” said Miss Bethune. 
“ And will it be long since you took to this trade 
protection, young man ?—for Gilchrist brought me 
word you were ill in your bed not a week ago.” 

“A man can’t stay in bed, when ’e has a wife 
to support, and with no ’ealth to speak of,” 
Hesketh replied, with a little bravado ; but he 
was very pale, and wiped the unwholesome dews 
from his forehead. 


A House in Bloomsbury, 167 

‘‘Anaemia, body and soul,” said the doctor to 
the lady, in an undertone. 

“Youdl come to his grandfather again in a 
moment,” said the lady to the doctor. “ Now, 
my lad, you shall just listen to me. Put down 
this moment your trade protections, and all 
your devices. Did you not hear, by Gilchrist, 
that we were meaning to gi'C^e you a new chance 
Not for your sake, but for your wife’s, though 
she probably is just tarred with the same stick. 
We were meaning to set you up in a little shop 
in a quiet suburb.” 

Here the young fellow made a grimace, but 
recollected himself, and said no word. 

“ Eh ! ” cried Miss Bethune, “ that wouldn’t 
serve your purposes, my fine gentleman ? ” 

“ I never said so,” said the young man. “ It’s 
awfully kind of you. Still, as I’ve got a place on 
my own hook, as it were—not that we mightn’t 
combine the two, my wife and I. She ain’t a bad 
saleswoman,” he added, with condescension. 
“We was in the same house of business before 
we v/as married—not that beastly old shop where 
they do nothing but take away the young gentle¬ 
men’s and young ladies’ characters. It’s as true 
as life what I say. Ask any one that has ever 
been there.” 

“ Anaemia,” said Miss Bethune, to the doctor, 
aside, “ would not be proof enough, if there were 
facts on the other hand.” 

“ I always mistrust facts,” the doctor replied. 

“ Here is your money,” she resumed. “ Write 
me out the receipt, or rather, put your name to it. 


168 A House in Bloomsbury. 

Now mind this, I will help you if you’re meaning 
to do well; but if I find out anything wrong in 
this, or hear that you’re in bed again to-morrow, 
and not fit to lift your head-” 

“No man can answer for his health, said 
young Hesketh solemnly. “ I may be bad, I 
may be dead to-morrow, for anything I can tell.” 

“ That is true.” 

“And my poor wife a widder, and the poor 
baby not born.” 

“In these circumstances,” said Dr. Roland, 
“ we’ll forgive her for what wasn’t her fault, and 
look after her. But that’s not likely, unless you 
are fool enough to let yourself be run over, or 
something of that sort, going out from here.” 

“Which I won’t, sir, if I can help it.” 

“And no great loss, either,” the doctor said 
in his undertone. He watched the payment 
grimly, and noticed that the young man’s hand 
shook in signing the receipt. What was the 
meaning of it? He sat for a moment in silence, 
while Hesketh’s steps, quickening as he went 
farther off, were heard going downstairs and to¬ 
wards the door. “ I wish I were as sure that 
money would find its way to the pockets of 
Fortnum and Mason, as I am that yonder down¬ 
looking hound had a criminal grandfather,” he said. 

“Well, there is the receipt, anyhow. Will 
you go and inquire ? ” 

“To what good? There would be a great 
fuss, and the young fool would get into prison 
probably ; whereas we may still hope that it is all 
right, and that he has turned over a new leaf.” 


A House in Bloo 77 tsbury. 169 

I should not be content without being at the 
bottom of it,” said Miss Bethune ; and then, after 
a pause: “There is another thing. The lady 
from South America that was here has been 
taken ill, Dr. Roland.” 

“Ah, so!” cried the doctor. “I should like 
to go and see her.” 

“You are not wanted to go and see her. It 
is I—which you will be surprised at—that is 
wanted, or, rather, Dora with me. I have had an 
anxious pleader here, imploring me by all that I 
hold dear. You will say that is not much, 
doctor.” 

“ I will say nothing of the kind. But I have 
little confidence in that lady from South America, 
or her young man.” 

“The young man is just as fine a young 
fellow! Doubt as you like, there is no deceit 
about him ; a countenance like the day, and eyes 
that meet you fair, look at him as you please. 
Doctor,” said Miss Bethune, faltering a little, “ I 
have taken a great notion into my head that he 
may turn out to be a near relation of my own.” 

“A relation of yourscried Dr. Roland, 
suppressing a whistle of astonishment. “ My 
thoughts were going a very different way.” 

“ I know, and your thoughts are justified. 
The lady did not conceal that she was Mrs. 
Mannering’s sister: but the one thing does not 
hinder the other.” 

“It would be a very curious coincidence— 
stranger, even, than usual.” 

“ Everything that’s strange is usual,” cried 


170 A House in Bloomsbury. 

Miss Bethune vehemently. “ It is we that have 
no eyes to see.” 

“ Perhaps,” said the doctor, who loved a 
paradox. I tell you what,” he added briskly, 
“ let me go and see this lady. I am very sus¬ 
picious about her. I should like to make her out 
a little before risking it for Dora, even with you.” 

“You think, perhaps, you would make it out 
better than I should,” said Miss Bethune, with 
some scorn. “Well, there is no saying. You 
would, no doubt, make out what is the matter 
with her, which is always the first thing that 
interests you.” 

“It explains most things, when you know 
how to read it,” the doctor said; but in this 
point his opponent did not give in to him, it is 
hardly necessary to say. She was very much 
interested about Dora, but she was still more in¬ 
terested in the question which moved her own 
heart so deeply. The lady from South America 
might be in command of many facts on that point; 
and prudence seemed to argue that it was best to 
see and understand a little more about her first, 
before taking Dora, without her father’s know¬ 
ledge, to a stranger who made such a claim upon 
her. 

“ Though if it is her mother’s sister, I don’t 
know who could have a stronger claim upon her,” 
said Miss Bethune. 

“ Provided her mother had a sister,” the 
doctor said. 


CHAPTER XV. 


Miss Bethune set out accordingly, without saying 
anything further, to see the invalid. She took 
nobody into her confidence, not even Gilchrist, 
who had much offended her mistress by her scepti¬ 
cism. Much as she was interested in every un¬ 
usual chain of circumstances, and much more still 
in anything happening to Dora Mannering, there 
was a still stronger impulse of personal feeling in 
her present expedition. It had gone to her head 
like wine ; her eyes shone, and there was a nervous 
energy in every line of her tall figure in its middle- 
aged boniness and hardness. She walked quickly, 
pushing her way forward when there was any crowd 
with an unconscious movement, as of a strong 
swimmer dividing the waves. Her mind was 
tracing out every line of the supposed process of 
events known to herself alone. It was her ov/n 
story, and such a strange one as occurs seldom in 
the almost endless variety of strange stories that 
are about the world—a story of secret marriage, 
secret birth, and sudden overwhelming calamity. 
She had as a young woman given herself foolishly 
and hastily to an adventurer: for she was an 
heiress, if she continued to please an old uncle 
who had her fate in his hands. The news of the 
unexpected approach of this old man brought the 
sudden crisis. The husband, who had been near 
(I/O 


172 A House in Bloo 7 nsbury. 

her in the profound quiet of the country, fled, 
taking with him the child, and after that no more. 
The marriage was altogether unknown, except to 
Gilchrist, and a couple of old servants in the small 
secluded country-house where the strange little 
tragedy had taken place ; and the young wife, who 
had never borne her husband’s name, came to life 
again after a long illness, to find every trace of 
her piteous story, and of the fate of the man for 
whom she had risked so much, and the child 
whom she had scarcely seen, obliterated. The 
agony through which she had lived in that first 
period of dismay and despair, the wild secret 
inquiries set on foot with so little knowledge of 
how to do anything of the kind, chiefly by means 
of the good and devoted Gilchrist, who, however, 
knew still less even than her mistress the way to 
do it—the long, monotonous years of living with 
the old uncle to whom that forlorn young woman 
in her secret anguish had to be nurse and com¬ 
panion ; the dreadful freedom afterwards, when 
the fortune was hers, and the liberty so long 
desired—but still no clue, no knowledge whether 
the child on whom she had set her passionate 
heart existed or not. The hero, the husband, 
existed no longer in her imagination. That first 
year of furtive fatal intercourse had revealed him 
in his true colours as an adventurer, whose aim 
had been her fortune. But why had he not re¬ 
vealed himself when that fortune was secure? 
Why had he not brought back the child who 
would have secured his hold over her whatever 
had happened? These questions had been dis- 


A House in Bloomsbury. 173 

cussed between Miss Bethune and her maid, till 
there was no longer any contingency, any com¬ 
bination of things or theories possible, which had 
not been torn to pieces between them, with 
reasonings sometimes as acute as mothers wit 
could make them, sometimes as foolish as ignor¬ 
ance and inexperience suggested. 

They had roamed all over the world in an 
anxious quest after the fugitives who had dis¬ 
appeared so completely into the darkness. What 
wind drifted them to Bloomsbury it would be too 
long to inquire. The wife of one furtive and 
troubled year, the mother of one anxious but 
heavenly week, had long, long ago settled into 
the angular, middle-aged unmarried lady of Mrs. 
Simcox’s first floor. She had dropped all her 
former friends, all the people who knew about 
her. And those people who once knew her by 
her Christian name, and as they thought every 
incident in her life, in reality knew nothing, not a 
syllable of the brief romance and tragedy which 
formed its centre. She had developed, they all 
thought, into one of those eccentrics who are so 
often to be found in the loneliness of solitary life, 
odd as were all the Bethunes, with something- 
added that was especially her own. By intervals 
an old friend would appear to visit her, marvelling 
much at the London lodging in which the mistress 
of more than one old comfortable house had 
chosen to bury herself. But the Bethunes were 
all queer, these visitors said ; there was a bee in 
their bonnet, there was a screw loose somewhere. 
It is astonishing the number of Scotch families of 


174 ^ House m Bloomsbury, 

whom this is said to account for everything their 
descendants may think or do. 

This was the woman who marched along the 
hot July streets with the same vibration of impulse 
and energy which had on several occasions led her 
half over the world. She had been disappointed a 
thousand times, but never given up hope; and each 
new will-o’-the-wisp which had led her astray had 
been welcomed with the same strong confidence, 
the same ever-living hope. Few of them, she ac¬ 
knowledged to herself now, had possessed half the 
likelihood of this;, and every new point of certitude 
grew and expanded within her as she proceeded on 
her way. 1 he same age, the same name (more or 
less), a likeness which Gilchrist, fool that she was, 
would not see ; and then the story, proving every¬ 
thing of the mother who was alive but unknown. 

Could anything be more certain.^ Miss 
Bethune’s progress through the streets was 
more like that of a bird on the wing, with that 
floating movement which is so full at once of 
strength and of repose, and wings ever ready for 
a swift coup to increase the impulse and clear the 
way, than of a pedestrian walking along a hot pave¬ 
ment. A strange coincidence ! Yes, it would be a 
very strange coincidence if her own very unusual 
story and that of the poor Mannerings should 
thus be twined together. But why should it not 
be so? Truth is stranger than fiction. The 
most marvellous combinations happen every day. 
The stranger things are, the more likely they 
are to happen. This was what she kept saying 
to herself as she hurried upon her way. 


A House in Bloomsbury. 175 

She was received in the darkened room, in 
the hot atmosphere perfumed and damped by the 
spray of some essence, where at first Miss Bethune 
felt she could scarcely breathe. When she was 
brought in, in the gleam of light made by the 
opened door, there was a little scream of eagerness 
from the bed at the other end of the long room, 
and then a cry : “But Dora ? Where is Dora ? 
It is Dora, Dora, I want! ” in a voice of disap¬ 
pointment and irritation close to tears. 

“You must not be vexed that I came first by 
myself,” Miss Bethune said. “To bring Dora 
without her father’s knowledge is a strong step.” 

“ But I have a right—I have a right!” cried 
the sick woman. “Nobody—not even he—could 
deny me a sight of her. I’ve hungered for years 
for a sight of her, and now that I am free I am 
going to die.” 

“ No, no! don’t say that,” said Miss Bethune, 
with the natural instinct of denying that conclusion. 
“You must not let your heart go down, for that 
is the worst of all.” 

“It is perhaps the best, too,” said the patient. 
“What could I have done.? Always longing for 
her, never able to have her except by stealth, 
frightened always that she would find out, or that 
he should find out. Oh, no, it’s better as it is. 
Now I can provide for my dear, and nobody to 
say a word. Now I can show her how I love her. 
And she will not judge me. A child like that 
doesn’t judge. She will learn to pity her poor, 

poor-Oh, why didn’t you bring me my 

Dora? I may not live another day.” 


176 A House in Bloomsbury, 

In the darkness, to which her eyes gradually 
became accustomed, Miss Bethune consulted 
silently with a look the attendant by the bed; and 
receiving from her the slight, scarcely distinguish¬ 
able, answer of a shake of the head, took the 
sufferer’s hand, and pressed it in her own. 

“ I will bring her,” she said, “ to-night, if you 
wish it, or to-morrow. I give you my word. If 
you think of yourself like that, whether you are 
right or not, I am not the one to disappoint you. 
To-night, if you wish it.” 

“Oh, to-night, to-night! I’ll surely live till 
to-night,” the poor wom.an cried. 

“And many nights more, if you will only keep 
quite quiet, ma’am. It depends upon yourself,” 
said the maid. 

“They always tell you,” said Mrs. Bristow, 
“ to keep quiet, as if that was the easiest thing to 
do. I might get up and walk all the long way to 
see my child ; but to be quiet without her—that 
is what is impossible—and knowing that perhaps 
I may never see her again I ” 

“You shall—you shall,” said Miss Bethune 
soothingly. “ But you have a child, and a good 
child—a son, or as like a son as possible.” 

“la son ? Oh, no, no—none but Dora! No 
one I love but Dora.” The poor lady paused 
then with a sob, and said in a changed voice : 
“You mean Harry Gordon? Oh, it is easy to 
see you are not a mother. He is very good—oh, 
very good. He was adopted by Mr. Bristow. 
Oh,” she cried, with a long crying breath, “ Mr. 
Bristow ought to have done something for Harry. 


A House in Bloomshiry. 177 

He ought to—I always said so. I did not want 
to have everything left to me.” 

She v/rung her thin hands, and a convulsive 
sob came out of the darkness. 

“ Ma am,” said the maid, “ I must send this 
lady aw’ay, and put a stop to everything, if you get 
agitated like this.” 

“ ril be quite calm, Miller—quite calm,” the 
patient cried, putting out her hand and clutching 
Miss Bethune’s dress. 

“To keep her calm I will talk to her of this 
other subject,” said Miss Bethune, wdth an injured 
tone in her voice. She held her head high, 
elevating her spare figure, as if in disdain. “ Let 
us forget Dora for the moment,” she said, “and 
speak of this young man that has only been a son 
to you for the most of his life, only given you 
his affection and his services and everything a 
child could do—but is nothing, of course, in com¬ 
parison with a little girl you know nothing about, 
who is your niece in blood.” 

“ Oh, my niece, my niece! ” the poor lady 
murmured under her breath. 

“Tell me something about this Harry Gordon; 
it will let your mind down from the more exciting 
subject,” said Miss Bethune, still with great 
dignity, as if of an offended person. “He has lived 
with you for years. He has shared your secrets.” 

“ I have talked to him about Dora,” she 
faltered. 

“ But yet,” said the stern questioner, more 
and more severely, “it does not seem you have 
cared anything about him all these years } ” 

12 


178 A House in Bloomsbury. 

“ Oh, don’t say that! I have always been fond 
of him, always—always! He will never say I 
have not been kind to him,” the invalid cried. 

‘H^ind.^” cried Miss Bethune, with an indig¬ 
nation and scorn which nothing could exceed. 
Then she added more gently, but with still the 
injured tone in her voice : “Will you tell me some¬ 
thing about him ? It will calm you down. I take 
an interest in the young man. He is like some¬ 
body I once knew, and his name recalls-” 

“Perhaps you knew his father.^” said Mrs. 
Bristow. 

“ Perhaps. I would like to hear more par¬ 
ticulars. He tells me his mother is living.” 

“ The father was very foolish to tell him. Mr. 
Bristow always said so. It was on his deathbed. 
I suppose,” cried the poor lady, with a deep sigh, 
“ that on your deathbed you feel that you must 
tell everything. Oh, I’ve been silent, silent, so 
long I I feel that too. She is not a mother that 
it v/ould ever be good for him to find. Mr. Bris¬ 
tow wished him never to come back to England, 
only for that. He said better be ignorant—better 
know nothing.” 

“ And why was the poor mother so easily con¬ 
demned ? ” 

“You would be shocked—you an unmarried 
lady—if I told you the story. She left him just 
after the boy was born. She fell from one degra¬ 
dation to another. He sent her money as long as 
he could keep any trace of her. Poor, poor man ! ” 

“ And his friends took everything for gospel 
that this man said ? ” 


A House in Bloojitsbury. lyg 

'‘He was an honest man. Why should he 
tell Mr. Bristow a lie.^ I said it was to be kept 
from poor Harry. It would only make him 
miserable. But there was no doubt about the 
truth of it—oh, none.” 

“ I tell you,” cried Miss Bethune, “that there 
is every doubt of it. His mother was a poor de¬ 
ceived girl, that was abandoned, deserted, left to 
bear her misery as she could.” 

“ Did you know his mother?’’said the patient, 
showing out of the darkness the gleam of eyes 
widened by astonishment. 

“ It does not matter,” cried Miss Bethune. “ I 
know this, that the marriage was in secret, and 
the boy was born in secret; and while she was ill 
and weak there came the news of some one com¬ 
ing that might leave her penniless ; and for the 
sake of the money, the wretched money, this man 
took the child up in his arms out of her very bed, 
and carried it away.” 

I'he sick woman clutched the arm of the 
other, who sat by her side, tragic and passionate, 
the words coming from her lips like sobs. “ Oh, 
my poor lady,” she said, “ if that is your story ! 
But it was not that. My husband, Mr. Bristow, 
knew. He knew all about Gordon from the be¬ 
ginning. It was no secret to him. He did not 
take the child away till the mother had gone, till he 
had tried every way to find her, even to bring her 
back. He was a merciful man. I knew him too. 
Oh, poor woman, poor woman, my heart breaks 
for that other you knew. She is like me, she is 
worse off than me : but the one you know was 


i8o A House in Bloomsbury. 

not Harry’s mother—oh, no, no—Harry’s mother! 
If she is living it is—it is—in misery, and worse 
than misery.” 

“He said,” uttered a hoarse voice, breathless, 
out of the dimness, which nobody could have re¬ 
cognised for Miss Bethune’s, “that you said there 
was no such woman.” 

“ I did—to comfort him, to make him believe 
that it was not true.” 

“ By a lie ! And such a lie—a shameful lie, 
when you knew so different I And how should 
any one believe now a word you say ? ” 

“ Oh, don’t let her say such things to me. 
Miller, Miller!” cried the patient, with the cry 
of a sick child. 

“ Madam,” said the maid, “she’s very bad, as 
you see, and you’re making her every minute 
worse. You can see it yourself. It’s my duty 
to ask you to go away.” 

Miss Bethune rose from the side of the bed 
like a ghost, tall and stern, and towering over the 
agitated, weeping woman who lay back on the 
white pillows, holding out supplicating hands and 
panting for breath. She stood for a moment look¬ 
ing as if she would have taken her by the throat. 
Then she gave herself a little shake, and turned 
away. 

Once more the invalid clutched at her dress 
and drew her back. “Oh,” she cried, “have 
mercy upon me! Don’t go away—don’t go 
away! I will bear anything. Say what you 
like, but bring me Dora—bring me Dora—before 
I die.” 


A Hottse in Bloomsbury, i8i 

Why should I bring you Dora ? Me to 

whom nobody brings-What is it to me if you 

live or if you die ? ” 

‘‘Oh, bring me Dora—bring me Dora!” the 
poor woman wailed, holding fast by her visitor s 
dress. She flung herself half out of the bed, 
drawing towards her with all her little force the 
unwilling, resisting figure. “ Oh, for the sake of 
all you wish for yourself, bring me Dora—Dora 
—before I die I ” 

“What have you left me to wish for?” cried 
the other woman ; and she drew her skirts out of 
the patient's grasp. 

No more different being from her who had 
entered an hour before by the long passages and 
staircases of the great hotel could have been than 
she who now repassed through them, looking 
neither to the right nor to the left—a woman like 
a straight line of motion and energy, as strong 
and stiff as iron, with expression banished from 
her face, and elasticity from her figure. She went 
back by the same streets she had come by, making 
her way straight through the crowd, which seemed 
to yield before the strength of passion and pain 
that was in her. There was a singing in her ears, 
and a buzzing in her head, and her heart was in 
her breast as if it had been turned to stone. Oh, 
she was not at her first shock of disappointment 
and despair. She had experienced it before; but 
never, she thought, in such terrible sort as now. 
She had so wrapped herself in this dream, which 
had been suggested to her by nothing but her 
own heart, what she thought her instinct, a sudden 


182 A House in Bloomsbury. 

flash of divination, the voice of nature. She had 
felt sure of it the first glimpse she had of him, 
before he had even told her his name She had 
been sure that this time it was the voice of nature, 
that intuition of a mother which could not be de¬ 
ceived. So many likenesses seemed to meet in 
Harry Gordon’s face, so many circumstances to 
combine in establishing the likelihood, at least, 
that this was he. South America, the very ideal 
place for an adventurer, and the strange fact that 
he had a mother living whom he did not know. 
A mother living! These words made a thrill of 
passion, of opposition, of unmoved and immovable 
conviction, rush through all her veins. A mother 
living! Who could that be but she ? What 
would such a man care—a man who had abandoned 
his wife at the moment of a woman’s greatest 
weakness, and taken her child from her when she 
was helpless to resist him—for the ruin of her 
reputation after, for fixing upon her, among those 
who knew her not, the character of a profligate } 
He who had done the first, why should he hesitate 
to say the last } The one thing cost him trouble, 
the other none. It was easier to believe that than 
to give up wdiat she concluded with certainty was 
her last hope. 

Gilchrist, who had seen her coming, rushed 
downstairs to open the door for her. But Gil¬ 
christ, at this moment, was an enemy, the last 
person in the world in whom her mistress w^ould 
confide ; Gilchrist, who had never believed in it, 
had refused to see the likeness, or to encourage 
any delusion. She was blind to the woman’s 


A House in Bloomsbtcry. 183 

imploring looks, her breathless “ Oh, mem! ” 
which was more than any question, and brushed 
past her with the same iron rigidity of pose, which 
had taken all softness from her natural angularity. 
She walked straight into her bedroom, where she 
took off her bonnet before the glass, without 
awaiting Gilchrist’s ministrations, nay, putting 
them aside with a quick impatient gesture. Then 
she went to her sitting-room, and drew her chair 
into her favourite position near the window, and 
took up the paper and began to read it with every 
appearance of intense interest. She had read it 
through every word, as is the practice of lonely 
ladies, before she went out: and she was pro¬ 
foundly conscious now of Gilchrist following her 
about, hovering behind her, and more anxious 
than words can say. Miss Bethune was an hour 
or more occupied about that newspaper, of which 
she did not see a single word, and then she rose 
suddenly to her feet. 

“ I cannot do it—I cannot do it! ” she cried. 
“The woman has no claim on me. Most likely 
she’s nothing but a fool, that has spoilt everything 
for herself, and more. Maybe it will not be good 
for Dora. But I cannot do it—I cannot do it. 
It’s too strong for me. Whatever comes of it, 
she must see her child—she must see her child 
before she passes away and is no more seen. 
And oh, I wish—I wish that it was not her, but 


CHAPTER XVI. 


Dora passed the long evening of that day in 
her fathers room. It was one of those days in 
which the sun seems to refuse to set, the daylight 
to depart. It rolled out in afternoon sunshine, 
prolonged as it seemed for half a year’s time, 
showing no inclination to wane. When the sun 
at last went down, there ensued a long interval 
of day without it, and slov/ly, slowly, the shades 
of twilight came on. Mr. Mannering had been 
very quiet all the afternoon. He had sat brood¬ 
ing, unwilling to speak. The big book came back 
with Mr. Fiddler’s compliments, and was replaced 
upon his table, where he sat sometimes turning 
over the pages, not reading, doing nothing. 
There are few things more terrible to a looker-on 
than this silence, this self-absorption, taking no 
notice of anything outside of him, of a convales¬ 
cent. The attitude of despondency, the bowed 
head, the curved shoulders, are bad enough in 
themselves : but nothing is so dreadful as the 
silence, the preoccupation with nothing, the eyes 
fixed on a page which is not read, or a horizon in 
which nothing is visible. Dora sat by him with 
a book, too, in which she was interested, which is 
perhaps the easiest way of bearing this ; but the 
book ended before the afternoon did, and then 
she had nothing to do but to watch him and won- 
(184) 


A Ho 7 cse in Blcomsbnry. 185 

der what he was thinking of—whether his mind 
was roving over lands unknown to her, whether 
it was about the Museum he was thinking, or the 
doctor’s orders, or the bills, two or three of which 
had by misadventure fallen into his hands. What 
was it? He remained in the same attitude, quite 
still and steady, not moving a finger. Sometimes 
she hoped he might have fallen asleep; sometimes 
she addressed to him a faltering question, to which 
he answered Yes or No. He was not impatient 
when she spoke to him. He replied to her in 
monosyllables, which are almost worse than silence. 
And Dora durst not protest, could not upbraid 
him with that dreadful silence, as an older person 
might have done. “Oh, father, talk to me a 
little! ” she once cried in her despair ; but he said 
gently that he had nothing to talk about, and 
silenced the girl. He had taken the various 
meals and refreshments that were ordered for 
him, when they came, with something that was 
half a smile and half a look of disgust; and this 
was the final exasperation to Dora. 

“Oh, father! when you know that you must 
take it—that it is the only way of getting well 
again.” 

“ I am taking it,” he said, with that twist of 
the lip at every spoonful which betrayed how 
distasteful it was. 

This is hard to bear for the most experienced 
of nurses, and what should it be for a girl of six¬ 
teen ? She clasped her hands together in her im¬ 
patience to keep herself down. And then there 
came a knock at the door, and Gilchrist appeared. 


186 A House in Bloomsbury. 

begging that Miss Dora would put on her hat and 
go out for a walk with Miss Bethune. 

“ ril come and sit with my work in a corner, 
and be there if he wants anything/’ 

Mr. Mannering did not seem to take any notice, 
but he heard the whisper at the door. 

“ There is no occasion for any one sitting with 
me. I am quite able to ring if I want anything.” 
“But, father, I don’t want to go out,” said Dora. 
“ I want you to go out,” he said peremptorily. 
“ It is not proper that you should be shut up here 
all day.” 

“ Let me light the candles, then, father ? ” 

“ I don’t want any candles. I am not doing 
anything. There is plenty of light for what I want.” 

Oh, what despair it was to have to do with a 
man who would not be shaken, who would take 
his own way and no other ! If he would but have 
read a novel, as Dora did—if he would but return 
to the study of his big book, which was the custom 
of his life. Dora felt that it was almost wicked to 
leave him : but what could she do, while he sat 
there absorbed in his thoughts, which she could 
not even divine what they were about ? 

To go out into the cool evening was a relief 
to her poor little exasperated temper and troubled 
mind. The air was sweet and fresh, even in 
Bloomsbury; the trees waved and rustled softly 
against the blue sky; there was a young moon 
somewhere, a white speck in the blue, though the 
light of day was not yet gone; the voices were 
softened and almost musical in the evening air, 
and it was so good to be out of doors, to be re- 


A House in Bloomshiry. 187 

moved from the close controlling atmosphere of 
unaccustomed trouble. “ Out of sight, out of 
mind,” people say. It was very far from being 
that; on the contrary, it was but the natural im¬ 
patience, the mere contrariety, that had made the 
girl ready to cry with a sense of the intolerable 
which now was softened and subdued, allowing 
love and pity to come back. She could talk of 
nothing but her father as she went along the 
street. 

“ Do you think he looks any better, Miss 
Bethune ? Do you think he will soon be able to 
get out? Do you think the doctor will let him 
return soon to the Museum? He loves the 
Museum better than anything. He would have 
more chance to get well if he might go back.” 

“ All that must be decided by time, Dora— 
time and the doctor, who, though we scoff at him 
sometimes, knows better, after all, than you or me. 
But I want you to think a little of the poor lady 
you are going to see.” 

“What am I going to see? Oh, that lady? I 
don’t know if father will wish me to see her. Oh, 
I did not know what it was you wanted of me. I 
cannot go against father. Miss Bethune, when he 
is ill and does not know.” 

“You will just trust to another than your father 
for once in your life, Dora. If you think I am 
not a friend to your father, and one that would 
consider him in all things-” 

The girl walked on silently, reluctantly, for 
some time without speaking, with sometimes a 
half pause, as if she would have turned back. 


i88 A House in Bloo)nsbury, 

Then she answered in a low voice, still not very 
willingly : ‘‘I know you are a friend 

You do not put much heart in it,'’ said Miss 
Bethune, with a laugh. The most magnanimous 
person, when conscious of having been very help¬ 
ful and a truly good friend at his or her personal 
expense to another, may be pardoned a sense of 
humour, partially bitter, in the grudging acknow¬ 
ledgment of ignorance. Then she added more 
gravely : When your father knows—and he shall 
know in time—where I am taking you, he will 
approve; whatever his feelings may be, he will 
tell you it was right and your duty: of that I am 
as sure as that I am living, Dora.” 

“ Because she is my aunt ? An aunt is not 
such a very tender relation. Miss Bethune. In 
books they are often very cold comforters, not 
kind to girls that are poor. I suppose,” said 
Dora, after a little pause, “ that 1 would be called 
poor ?” 

‘Wou are just nothing, you foolish little thing! 
You have no character of your own; you are youi 
father’s daughter, and no more.” 

“ I don’t wish to be anything more,” cried 
Dora, with her foolish young head held high. 

“And this poor woman,” said Miss Bethune, 
exasperated, “will not live long enough to be a 
friend to any one—so you need not be afraid 
either of her being too tender or unkind. She 
has come back, poor thing, after long years spent 
out of her own country, to die.” 

“ To die ? ” the girl echoed in a horrified tone. 

“Just that, and nothing less or more ” 


A House in Bloomsbury. 189 

Dora walked on by Miss Bethune’s side for 
some time in silence. There was a long, very 
long walk through the streets before they reached 
the coolness and freshness of the Park. She said 
nothing for a long time, until they had arrived at 
the Serpentine, which—veiled in shadows and 
mists of night, with the stars reflected in it, and 
the big buildings in the distance standing up 
solemnly, half seen, yet with gleams of lamps and 
light all over them, beyond, and apparently among 
the trees—has a sort of splendour and reality, like 
a great natural river flowing between its banks. 
She paused there for a moment, and asked, with 
a quick drawing of her breath : “ Is it some one— 
who is dying—that you are taking me to see } ” 

“Yes, Dora; and next to your father, your 
nearest relation in the world.” 

“ I thought at one time that he was going to 
die, Miss Bethune.” 

“ So did we all, Dora.’’ 

“And I was very much afraid—oh, not only 
heartbroken, but afraid. I thought he would 
suffer so, in himself,” she said very low, “ and to 
leave me.” 

“They do not,” said Miss Bethune with great 
solemnity, as if not of any individual, but of a 
mysterious class of people. “They are delivered ; 
anxious though they may have been, they are 
anxious no more ; though their hearts would have 
broken to part with you a little while before, it is 
no longer so ; they are delivered. Its a very 
solemn thing,” she went on, with something like a 
sob in her voice ; “ but it s comforting, at least to 


190 A House in Bloomsbury. 

the like of me. Their spirits are changed, they 
are separated ; there are other things before them 
greater than what they leave behind.” 

“Oh,” cried the girl, “I should not like to 
think of that: if father had ceased to think of me 
even before-” 

“ It is comforting to me,” said Miss Bethune, 
“ because I am of those that are going, and you, 
Dora, are of those that are staying. I’m glad to 
think that the silver chain will be loosed and the 
golden bowl broken—all the links that bind us to 
the earth, and all the cares about what is to 
happen after.” 

“ Have you cares about what is to happen 
after cried Dora. “ Father has, for he has me ; 
but you. Miss Bethune?” 

Dora never forgot, or thought she would 
never forget, the look that was cast upon her. 
“And I,” said Miss Bethune, “have not even 
you, have nobody belonging to me. Well,” she 
said, going on with a heavy long-drawn breath, 
“it looks as if it were true.” 

This was the girl’s first discovery of what 
youth is generally so long in finding out, that in 
her heedlessness and unconscious conviction that 
what related to herself was the most important in 
the world, and what befel an elderly neighbour 
of so much less consequence, she had done, or 
at least said, a cruel thing. But she did not 
know how to mend matters, and so went on by 
her friend’s side dumb, confusedly trying to enter 
into, now that it was too late, the sombre com¬ 
plications of another’s thought. Nothing more 



A House in Bloomsbury. 191 

was said till they were close to the great hotel, 
which shone out with its many windows luminous 
upon the soft background of the night. Then 
Miss Bethune put her hand almost harshly upon 
Dora’s arm. 

“You will remember, Dora,” she said, “that 
the person we are going to see is a dying person, 
and in all the world it is agreed that where a 
dying person is he or she is the chief person, and 
to be considered above all. It is, maybe, a super¬ 
stition, but it is so allowed. Their wants and 
their wishes go before all; and the queen herself, 
if she were coming into that chamber, would bow 
to it like all the rest: and so must you. It is, 
perhaps, not quite sincere, for why should a 
woman be more thought of because she is going 
to die ? That is not a quality, you will say : but 
yet it’s a superstition, and approved of by all 
the civilised world.” 

“Oh, Miss Bethune,” cried Dora, “I know 
that I deserve that you should say this to me : 
but yet-” 

Her companion made no reply, but led the 
way up the great stairs. 

The room was not so dark as before, though 
it was night; a number of candles were shining 
in the farther corner near the bed, and the pale 
face on the pillow, the nostrils dark and widely 
opened with the panting breath, was in full light, 
turned towards the door. A nurse in her white 
apron and cap was near the bed, beside a maid 
whose anxious face was strangely contrasted with 
the calm of the professional person. These ac- 



192 A House in Bloomsbury, 

cessories Dora’s quick glance took in at once, 
while yet her attention was absorbed in the cen¬ 
tral figure, which she needed no further explana¬ 
tion to perceive had at once become the first 
object, the chief interest, to all near her. Dying! 
It was more than mere reigning, more than being 
great. To think that where she lay there she was 
going fast away into the most august presence, 
to the deepest wonders! Dora held her breath 
with awe. She never, save when her father was 
swimming for his life, and her thoughts were con¬ 
centrated on the struggle with all the force of 
personal passion, as if it were she herself who was 
fighting against death, had seen any such sight 
before. 

“Is it Dora?” cried the patient. “Dora! 
Oh, my child, my child, have you come at last ? ” 

And then Dora found arms round her clutch¬ 
ing her close, and felt with a strange awe, not un¬ 
mingled with terror, the wild beating of a feverish 
heart, and the panting of a laborious breath. 
The wan face was pressed against hers. She felt 
herself held for a moment with extraordinary 
force, and kisses, tears, and always the beat of 
that troubled breathing, upon her cheek. Then 
the grasp relaxed reluctantly, because the sufferer 
could do no more. 

“ Oh, gently, gently; do not wear yourself 
out. She is not going away. She has come to 
stay with you,” a soothing voice said. 

“That’s all I want—all I want in this world— 
what I came for,” gave forth the panting lips. 

Dora’s impulse was to cry, “No, no!” to 


A Hottse in Bloomsbury, 193 

rise up from her knees, upon which she had fallen 
unconsciously by the sick bed, to withdraw from 
it, and if possible get away altogether, terrified of 
that close vicinity : but partly what Miss Bethune 
had said, and partly natural feeling, the instinct of 
humanity, kept her in spite of herself w^here she 
was. The poor lady lay with her face intent 
upon Dora, stroking her hair and her forehead 
with those hot thin hands, beaming upon her 
with that ineffable smile which is the prerogative 
of the dying. 

“ Oh, my little girl,” she said,—my only one, 
my only one! Twelve years it is—twelve long 
years—and all the time thinking of this ! When 
Tve been ill,—and IVe been very ill. Miller will 
tell you,—I’ve kept up. I’ve forced myself to be 
better for this—for this I ” 

“You will wear yourself out, ma’am,” said the 
nurse. “You must not talk, you must be quiet, 
or I shall have to send the young lady away.” 

“No, no!” cried the dying woman, again 
clutching Dora with fevered arms. “For what 
must I be quiet ?—to live a little longer ? I only 
want to live while she’s here. I only want it as 
long as I can see her—Dora, you’ll stay with me, 

you’ll stay with your poor—poor-” 

“ She shall stay as long as you want her : but 
for God’s sake think of something else, woman— 
think of where you’re going ! ” cried Miss Bethune 
harshly over Dora’s head. 

They disposed of her at their ease, talking 
over her head, bandying her about—she who was 
mistress of her own actions, who had never been 

13 



194 ^ House m Bloomsbury, 

made to stay where she did not wish to stay, or 
to go where she did not care to go. But Dora 
was silent even in the rebellion of her spirit. 
There was a something more strong than herself, 
which kept her there on her knees in the middle 
of the circle—all, as Miss Bethune had said, 
attending on the one who was dying, the one who 
was of the first interest, to whom even the queen 
would bow and defer if she were to come in here. 
Dora did not know what to say to a person in 
such a position. She approved, yet was angry 
that Miss Bethune should bid the poor lady think 
where she was going. She was frightened and 
excited, not knowing what dreadful change might 
take place, what alteration, before her very eyes. 
Her heart began to beat wildly against her breast; 
pity was in it, but fear too, which is masterful and 
obliterates other emotions: yet even that was 
kept in check by the overvv^helming influence, the 
fascination of the chamber of death. 

Then there was a pause ; and Dora, still on 
her knees by the side of the bed, met as best she 
could the light which dazzled her, which enveloped 
her in a kind of pale flame, from the eyes preter- 
naturally bright that were fixed upon her face, 
and listened, as to a kind of strange lullaby, to the 
broken words of fondness, a murmur of fond 
names, of half sentences, and monosyllables, in the 
silence of the hushed room. This seemed to last 
for a long time. She was conscious of people 
passing with hushed steps behind her, looking 
over her head, a man’s low voice, the whisper of 
the nurses, a movement of the lights ; but always 


A House in Bloomsbury, 195 

that transfigured face, all made of whiteness, 
luminous, the hot breath coming and going, the 
hands about her face, the murmur of words. The 
girl was cramped with her attitude for a time, and 
then the cramp went away, and her body became 
numb, keeping its position like a mechanical 
thing, while her mind too was lulled into a curious 
sense of torpor, yet spectatorship. This lasted 
she did not know how long. She ceased to be 
aware of what was being said to her. Her own 
name, “ Dora,” over and over again repeated, and 
strange words, that came back to her afterwards, 
went on in a faltering stream. Hours might have 
passed for anything she knew, when at last she 
was raised, scarcely capable of feeling anything, 
and put into a chair by the bedside. She became 
dimly conscious that the brilliant eyes that had 
been gazing at her so long were being veiled as 
with sleep, but they opened again suddenly as 
she was removed, and were fixed upon her with 
an anguish of entreaty. “ Dora, my child,—my 
child ! Don’t take her away ! ” 

“ She is going to sit by you here,” said a 
voice, which could only be a doctor’s voice, “here 
by your bedside. It is easier for her. She is not 
going away.” 

Then the ineffable smile came back. The two 
thin hands enveloped Dora’s wrist, holding her 
hand close betw^een them; and again there came a 
wonderful interval—the dark room, the little stars 
of lights, the soft movements of the attendants 
gradually fixing themselves like a picture on 
Dora’s mind. Miss Bethune was behind in the 


196 A House in Bloomsbury, 

dark, sitting bolt upright against the wall, and 
never moving. Shadowed by the curtains at the 
foot of the bed was some one with a white and 
anxious face, whom Dora had only seen in the 
cheerful light, and could scarcely identify as Harry 
Gordon. A doctor and the white-capped nurse 
were in front, the maid crying behind. It seemed 
to go on again and last for hours this strange 
scene—until there suddenly arose a little com¬ 
motion and movement about the bed, Dora could 
not tell why Her hand was liberated; the 
other figures came between her and the wan face 
on the pillow, and she found herself suddenly, 
swiftly swept away. She neither made any 
resistance nor yet moved of her own will, and 
scarcely knew what was happening until she felt 
the fresh night air on her face, and found herself 
in a carriage, with Harry Gordon’s face, very 
grave and white, at the window. 

“You will come to me in the morning and let 
me know the arrangements,” Miss Bethune said, 
in a low voice. 

“Yes, I will come ; and thank you, thank you 
a thousand times for bringing her,” he said. 

They all talked of Dora as if she were a 
thing, as if she had nothing to do with herself. 
Her mind was roused by the motion, by the air 
blowing in her face. “What has happened? 
What has happened ? ” she asked as they drove 
away. 

“ Will she be up yonder already, beyond that 
shining sky ? Will she know as she is known ? 
Will she be satisfied with His likeness, and be 


A House in Bloomsbury. 197 

like Him, seeing Him as He is?” said Miss 
Bethune, looking up at the stars, with her eyes 
full of big tears. 

“ Oh, tell me,” cried Dora, what has 
happened ? ” with a sob of excitement; for 
whether she was sorry, or only awe-stricken, 
she did not know. 

“Just everything has happened that can 
happen to a woman here She has got safe 
away out of it all; and there are few, few at my 
time of life, that would not be thankful to be like 
her—out of it all: though it may be a great 
thought to go.” 

“ Do you mean that the lady is dead ? ” Dora 
asked in a voice of awe. 

She is dead, as we say ; and content, having 
had her heart’s desire.” 

“Was that me?” cried Dora, humbled by a 
great wonder. “Me? Why should she have 
wanted me so much as that, and not to let me 
go ? ” 

“Oh, child, I know no more than you, and 
yet I know well, well! Because she was your 
mother, and you were all she had in the world.” 

“ My mother’s sister,” said Dora, with childish 
sternness; “and,” she added after a moment, “not 
my father’s friend.” 

“ Oh, hard life and hard judgment! ” cried 
Miss Bethune. “Your mother’s own self, a poor 
martyr: except that at the last she has had, what 
not every woman has, for a little moment, her 
heart’s desire! ” 


CHAPTER XVII. 


Young Gordon went into Miss Bethune’s sitting- 
room next morning so early that she was still at 
breakfast, lingering over her second cup of tea. 
His eyes had the look of eyes which had not 
slept, and that air of mingled fatigue and excite¬ 
ment which shows that a great crisis which had just 
come wab about his whole person His energetic 
young limbs were languid with it. He threw 
himself into a chair, as if even that support and 
repose were comfortable, and an ease to his whole 
being. 

“She rallied for a moment after you were 
gone,” he said in a low voice, not looking at his 
companion, “ but not enough to notice anything. 
The doctor said there was no pain or suffering—r 
if he knows anything about it.” 

“Ay, if he knows,’ Miss Bethune said. 

“And so she is gone,” said the young man 
with a deep sigh He struggled for a moment 
with his voice, which went from him in the sudden 
access of sorrow. After a minute he resumed * 
“ She’s gone, and my occupation, all my reasons 
for living, seem to be gone too. I know no more 
what is going to happen. I was her son yester¬ 
day, and did everything for her; now I don’t 
know what I am. I am nobody, with scarcely 
the right even to be there.” 

(198) 


A House in Bloomsbury. 199 

What do you mean ? Everybody must know 
what you have been to her, and her to you, all 
your life.” 

The young man was leaning forward in his 
chair bent almost double, with his eyes fixed on 
the floor. Yes,” he said, “ I never understood it 
before : but I know now what it is to have no 
rightful place, to have been only a dependent on 
their kindness. When my guardian died I did 
not feel it, because she was still there to think of 
me, and I was her representative in everything; 
but now the solicitor has taken the command, and 
makes me see I am nobody. It is not for the 
money,” the young man said, with a wave of his 
hand. Let that go however she wished. God 
knows I would never complain. But I might 
have been allowed to do something for her, to 
manage things for her as I have done—oh, almost 
ever since I can remember” He looked up with 
a pale and troubled smile, wistful for sympathy. 
‘T feel as if I had been cut adrift,” he said. 

‘‘My poor boy! But she must have provided 
for you, fulfilled the expectations-” 

“ Don’t say that I ” he cried quickly. “ There 
were no expectations. I can truly say I never 
thought upon the subject—never!—until we came 
here ^o London.. Then it was forced upon me 
that I was good for nothing, did not know how 
to make my living It was almost amusing at 
first, I was so unused to it; but not now I am 
afraid I am quite useless,” he added, with again 
a piteous smile. “I am in the state of the poor 
fellow in the Bible. ‘ I can’t dig, and to beg I 



200 A Hojise in Bloomsbury, 

am ashamed.’ I don’t know,” he cried, “why I 
should trouble you with all this. But you said 
I was to come to you in the morning, and I feel 
I can speak to you. That’s about all the expla¬ 
nation there is.” 

“ It’s the voice of nature,” cried Miss Bethune 
quickly, an eager flush covering her face. “ Don’t 
you know, don’t you feel, that there is nobody 
but me you could come to ?—that you are sure of 
me whoever fails you—that there’s a sympathy, 
and more than a sympathy } Oh, my boy, 1 will 
be to you all, and more than all! ” 

She was so overcome with her own emotion 
that she could not get out another word. 

A flush came also upon Harry Gordon’s pale 
face, a look abashed and full of wonder He felt 
that this lady, whom he liked and respected, went 
so much too far, so much farther than there was 
any justification for doing. He was troubled 
instinctively for her, that she should be so impul¬ 
sive, so strangely affected. He shook his head. 
“ Don’t think me ungrateful,” he cried. “Indeed, 
I don’t know if you mean all that your words 
seem to mean—as how should you indeed, and I 
only a stranger to you? But, dear Miss Bethune, 
that can never be again It is bad enough, as I 
find out, to have had no real tie to her, my dear 
lady that’s gone—and to feel that everybody must 
think my grief for my poor aunt is partly dis¬ 
appointment because she has not provided for me. 
But no such link could be forged again. I was a 
child when that was made. It was natural; they 
settled things for me as they pleased, and I knew 


A House in Bloomsbury, 201 

nothing but that I was very happy there, and 
loved them, and they me. But now I am a man, 
and must stand for myself. Don’t think me un¬ 
gracious. It’s impossible but that a man with full 
use of his limbs must be able to earn his bread. 
It’s only going back to South America, if the 
worst comes to the worst, where everybody knows 
me,” he said. 

Miss Bethune’s countenance had been like a 
drama while young Gordon made this long speech, 
most of which was uttered with little breaks and 
pauses, without looking at her, in the same atti¬ 
tude, with his eyes on the ground. Yet he 
looked up once or twice with that flitting sad 
smile, and an air of begging pardon for anything 
he said which might wound her. Trouble, and 
almost shame, and swift contradiction, and anger, 
and sympathy, and tender pity, and a kind of 
admiration, all went over her face in waves. She 
was wounded by what he said, and disappointed, 
and yet approved. Could there be all these things 
in the hard lines of a middle-aged face ? And yet 
there were all, and more. She recovered herself 
quickly as he came to an end, and with her usual 
voice replied :— 

“ We must not be so hasty to begin with. It 
is more than likely that the poor lady has made 
the position clear in her will. We must not jump 
to the conclusion that things are not explained in 
that and set right ; it would be a slur upon her 
memory even to think that it would not be so.” 

“ There must be no slur on her memory,” said 
young Gordon quickly ; “ but I am almost sure 


202 A House in Bloomshtry. 

that it will not be so. She told me repeatedly 
that I was not to blame her—as if it were likely 
I should blame her ! ” 

“ She would deserve blame,” cried Miss Be- 
thune quickly, “ if after all that has passed she 
should leave you with no provision, no acknow¬ 
ledgment -” 

He put up his hand to stop her. 

“Not a word of that! What I wanted was to 
keep my place until after—until all was done for 
her. I am a mere baby,” he cried, dashing away 
the tears from his eyes. “It was that solicitor 
coming in to take charge of everything, to lock up 
everything, to give all the orders, that was more 
than I could bear.” 

She did not trust herself to say anything, but 
laid her hand upon his arm. And the poor young 
fellow was at the end of his forces, worn out bodily 
with anxiety and want of sleep, and mentally by 
grief and the conflict of emotions. He bent down 
his face upon her hand, kissing it with a kind of 
passion, and burst out, leaning his head upon her 
arm, into a storm of tears, that broke from him 
against his will. Miss Bethune put her other 
hand upon his bowed head ; her face quivered 
with the yearning of her whole life. “ Oh, God, 
is he my bairn?—Oh, God, that he were my 
bairn! ” she cried. 

But nobody would have guessed what this 
crisis had been who saw them a little after, as 
Dora saw them, who came into the room pale too 
with the unusual vigil of the previous night, but 
full of an indignant something which she had to 



A Hotise in Bloomsbury, 203 

say. “ Miss Bethune,” she cried, almost before 
she had closed the door, “ do you know what 
Gilchrist told father about last night —that I was 
tired when I came in, and had a headache, and 
she had put me to bed ! And now I have to tell 
lies too, to say I am better, and to agree when he 
thanks Gilchrist for her care, and says it was the 
best thing for me. Oh, what a horrible thing it 
is to tell lies! To hide things from him, and 
invent excuses, and cheat him—cheat him with 
stories that are not true 1 ” 

Her hair waved behind her, half curling, crisp, 
inspired by indignation : her slim figure seemed 
to expand and grow, her eyes shone. Miss 
Bethune had certainly not gained anything by the 
deceptions, which were very innocent ones after 
all, practised upon Mr. Mannering : but she had 
to bear the brunt of this shock with what com¬ 
posure she might. She laughed a little, half glad 
to shake off the fumes of deeper emotion in 
this new incident. “ As soon as he is stronger 
you shall explain everything to him, Dora,” 
she said. “ When the body is weak the mind 
should not be vexed more than is possible with 
perplexing things or petty cares. But as soon as 
he is better-” 

“ And now,” cried Dora, flinging back her hair, 
all crisped, and almost scintillating, with anger and 
distress, her eyes filled with tears, “ here comes 
the doctor now—far, far worse than any bills or 
any perplexities, and tells him straight out that he 
must ask for a year’s holiday and go away, first 
for the rest of the summer, and then for the 



204 ^ House in Bloomsbury, 

winter, as father says, to one of those places where 
all the fools go!—father, whose life is in the 
Museum, who cares for nothing else, who can’t bear 
to go away! Oh ! ” cried Dora, stamping her foot, 
“to think I should be made to lie, to keep little, 
little things from him—contemptible things ! and 
that then the doctor should come straight upstairs 
and without any preface, without any apology, 
blurt out that! ” 

“ The doctor must have thought, Dora, it 
was better for him to know. He says all will go 
well, he will get quite strong, and be able to work 
in the Museum to his heart’s content, if only he 
will do this now.” 

“If only he will do this! If only he will in¬ 
vent a lot of money, father says, which we haven’t 
got. And how is the money to be invented It 
is like telling poor Mrs. Hesketh not to walk, but 
to go out in a carriage every day. Perhaps that 
would make her quite well, poor thing. It would 
make the beggar at the corner quite well if he 
had turtle soup and champagne like father. And 
we must stop even the turtle soup and the cham¬ 
pagne. He will not have them ; they make him 
angry now that he has come to himself. Cannot 
you see, Miss Bethune,” cried Dora with youthful 
superiority, as if such a thought could never have 
occurred to her friend, “that we can only^ do 
things which we can do—that there are some 
things that are impossible Oh! ” she said 
suddenly, perceiving for the first time young 
Gordon with a start of annoyance and surprise. 
“I did not know,” cried Dora, “that I was dis- 


A House in Bloomsbury, 205 

cussing our affairs before a gentleman who can’t 
take any interest in them.” 

“ Dora, Is that all you have to say to one that 
shared our watch last night—that has just come, 
as it were, from her that is gone? Have you no 
thought of that poor lady, and what took place so 
lately ? Oh, my dear, have a softer heart.” 

“ Miss Bethune,” said Dora with dignity, I 
am very sorry for the poor lady of last night. I 
was a little angry because I was made to deceive 
father, but my heart was not hard. I was very 
sorry. But how can I go on thinking about her 
when I have father to think of? I could not be 
fond of her, could I ? I did not know her—I 
never saw her but once before. If she was my 
mother’s sister, she was—she confessed it herself 
—father’s enemy. I must—I must be on father’s 
side,” cried Dora. ‘H have had no one else all my 
life.” 

Miss Bethune and her visitor looked at each 
other,—he with a strange painful smile, she with 
tears in her eyes. “It is just the common way,” 
she said,—“just the common way! You look 
over the one that loves you, and you heap love 
upon the one that loves you not.” 

“It cannot be the common way,” said Gordon, 
“ for the circumstances are not common. It is 
because of strange things, and relations that are 
not natural. I had no right to that love you 
speak of, and Dora had. But I have got all the 
advantages of it for many a year. There is no 
injustice if she who has the natural right to It gets 
it now.” 


2 o 6 a House in Bloomsbury, 

“ Ob, my poor boy,” cried Miss Bethime, “you 
argue well, but you know better in your heart.” 

“ I have not a grudge in my heart,” he ex¬ 
claimed, “ not one, nor a complaint. Oh, believe 
me!—except to be put away as if I were nobody, 
just at this moment when there was still some¬ 
thing to do for her,” he said, after a pause. 

Dora looked from one to the other, half 
wondering, half im.patient. “You are talking of 
Mr. Gordon’s business now,” she said; “and I 
have nothing to do with that, any more than he 
has to do with mine. I had better go back to 
father. Miss Bethune, if you will tell Dr. Roland 
that he is cruel—that he ought to have waited till 
father v/as stronger—that it was wicked—wicked 
— to go and pour out all that upon him without 
any preparation, when even I was out of the way.” 

“ Indeed, I think there is reason in what you 
say, Dora,” said Miss Bethune, as the girl went 
away. 

“It will not matter,” said Gordon, after the 
door was closed. “ That is one thing to be glad 
of, there will be no more want of money. Now,” 
he said, rising, “ I must go back again. It has 
been a relief to come and tell you everything, but 
now it seems as if I had a hunger to go back : and 
yet it is strange to go back. It is strange to walk 
about the streets and to know that I have nobody 
to go home to, that she is far away, and unmoved 
by anything that can happen to me.” He paused 
a moment, and added, with that low laugh which 
is the alternative of tears : “ Not to say that there 
is no home to go back to, nothing but a room in a 


A House in Bloomsbury. 207 

hotel which I must get out of as* soon as possible, 
and nobody belonging to me, or that I belong to. 
It is so difficult to get accustomed to the idea.” 

Miss Bethune gave a low cry. It was inarticu¬ 
late, but she could not restrain it. She put out 
both her hands, then drew them back again ; and 
after he had gone away, she went on pacing up and 
down the room, making this involuntary movement, 
murmuring that outcry, which was not even a 
word, to herself. She put out her hands, some¬ 
times her arms, then brought them back and 
pressed them to the heart which seemed to be 
bursting from her breast. Oh, if it might still 
be that he were mine! Oh, if I might believe it 
(as I do—I do!) and take him to me whether or 
no!” Her thoughts shaped themselves as their 
self-repression gave way to that uncontrollable 
tide. “ Oh, well might he say that it was not the 
common way! the woman that had been a mother 
to him, thinking no more of him the moment her 
own comes in! And might I be like that If 
I took him. to my heart, that I think must be 
mine, and then the other, the true one—that would 
know nothing of me! And he, what does he know 
of me ?—what does he think of me 1 —an old fool 
that puts out my arms to him without rhyme or 
reason. But then it’s to me he comes when he’s 
in trouble ; he comes to me, he leans his head on 
me, just by instinct, by nature. And nature cries 
out in me here.” She put her hands once more 
with unconscious dramatic action to her heart. 
“ Nature cries out—nature cries out! ” 

Unconsciously she said these words aloud, and 


2 o 8 a House in Bloomsbury, 

herself startled by the sound of her own voice, 
looked up suddenly, to see Gilchrist, who had just 
come into the room, standing gazing at her with 
an expression of pity and condemnation which 
drove her mistress frantic. Miss Bethune 
coloured high. She stopped in a moment her 
agitated walk, and placed herself in a chair with 
an air of hauteur and loftiness difficult to describe. 
“Well,” she said, “were you wanting anything?” 
as if the excellent and respectable person standing 
before her had been, as Gilchrist herself said after¬ 
wards, “the scum of the earth ”. 

“No’ much, mem,” said Gilchrist; “only to 
know if you were ”—poor Gilchrist was so 
frightened by her mistress’s aspect that she in¬ 
vented reasons which had no sound of truth in 
them—“ going out this morning, or wanting 
your seam or the stocking you were knitting.” 

“ Did you think I had all at once become 
doited, and did not know what I wanted ? ” asked 
Miss Bethune sternly. 

Gilchrist made no reply, but dropped her 
guilty head. 

“ To think,” cried the lady, “ that I cannot 
have a visitor in the morning—a common visitor 
like those that come and go about every idle 
person,—nor take a thought into my mind, nor 
say a word even to myself, but in comes an in¬ 
trusive serving-woman to worm out of me, with 
her frightened looks and her peety and her com¬ 
passion, what it’s all about! Lord! if it were 
any other than a woman that’s been about me 
twenty years, and had just got herself in to be a 


A House in Bloomsbury, 209 

habit and a custom, that would dare to come with 
her soft looks peetying me ! ” 

Having come to a climax, voice and feeling 
together, in those words. Miss Bethune suddenly 
burst into the tempest of tears which all this time 
had been gathering and growing beyond any 
power of hers to restrain them. 

“ Oh, my dear leddy, my dear leddy!” Gilchrist 
said; then, gradually drawing nearer, took her 
mistress’s head upon her ample bosom till the fit 
was over. 

When Miss Bethune had calmed herself again, 
she pushed the maid away. 

“ ril have no communication with you,” she 
said. “You’re a good enough servant, you’re not 
an ill woman; but as for real sympathy or support 
in what is most dear, it’s no’ you that will give 
them to any person. I’m neither wanting to go 
out nor to take my seam. I will maybe read a 
book to quiet myself down, but I’m not meaning 
to hold any communication with you.” 

“ Oh, mem! ” said Gilchrist, in appeal : but 
she was not deeply cast down. “ If it was about 
the young gentleman,” she added, after a moment, 
“ I just think he is as nice a young gentleman as 
the world contains.” 

“Did I not tell you so?” cried the mistress 
in triumph. “ And like the gracious blood he’s 
come of,” she said, rising to her feet again, as if 
she were waving a flag of victory. Then she sat 
down abruptly, and opened upside down the book 
she had taken from the table. “ But I’ll hold no 
communication with you on that subject,” she said. 

14 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

Mr. Mannering had got into his sitting-room the 
next day, as the first change for which he was 
able in his convalescent state. The doctor’s 
decree, that he must give up work for a year, 
and spend the winter abroad, had been fulminated 
forth upon him in the manner described by Dora, 
as a means of rousing him from the lethargy into 
which he was falling. After Dr. Roland had 
refused to permit of his speedy return to the 
Museum, he had become indifferent to everything 
except the expenses, concerning which he was 
now on the most jealous watch, declining to taste 
the dainties that were brought to him. “ I can¬ 
not afford it,” was his constant cry. He had 
ceased to desire to get up, to dress, to read, which, 
in preparation, as he hoped, for going out again, 
he had been at first so eager to do. Then the 
doctor had delivered his full broadside. ‘‘You 
may think what you like of me, Mannering; of 
course, it’s in your power to defy me and die. 
You can if you like, and nobody can stop you : 
but if you care for anything in this world,—for 
that child who has no protector but you,”—here 
the doctor made a pause full of force, and fixed 
the patient with his eyes,—“you will dismiss all 
other considerations, and make up your mind to 
do what will make you well again, without any 
( 210 ) 


A House in Bloomsbury. 2 11 

more nonsense. You must do it, and nothing 
less will do.” 

“Tell the beggar round the corner to go to 
Italy for the winter,” said the invalid; “he’ll 
manage it better than I. A man can beg any¬ 
where, he carries his profession about with him. 
That’s, I suppose, what you mean me to do.” 

“ I don’t care what you do,” cried Dr. Roland, 
“ as long as you do what I say.” 

Mr. Mannering was so indignant, so angry, 
so roused and excited, that he walked into his 
sitting-room that afternoon breathing fire and 
flame. “ I shall return to the Museum next 
week,” he said. “ Let them do what they please, 
Dora. Italy! And what better is Italy than 
England, I should like to know ? A blazing hot, 
deadly cold, impudently beautiful country. No 
repose in it, always in extremes like a scene in a 
theatre, or else like chill desolation, misery, and 
death. I’ll not hear a word of Italy. The South 
of France IS worse; all the exaggerations of the 
other, and a volcano underneath. He may rave 
till he burst, I will not go. The Museum is the 
place for me—or the grave, which might be better 
still.” 

“Would you take me there with you, father?” 
said Dora. 

“Child!” He said this word in such a tone 
that no capitals in the world could give any idea 
of it; and then that brought him to a pause, and 
increased the force of the hot stimulant that al¬ 
ready was working in his veins. “ But we have 
no money,” he cried,—“no money—no money! 


212 A House in Bloomsbury. 

Do you understand that ? I have been a fool. I 
have been going on spending everything I had. I 
never expected a long illness, doctors and nurses, 
and all those idiotic luxuries. I can eat a chop— 
do you hear, Dora?—a chop, the cheapest you can 
get. I can live on dry bread. But get into debt 
I will not—not for you and all your doctors. 
There’s tha: Fiddler and his odious book—three 
pounds ten—what for ? For a piece of vanity, to 
say I had the 1490 edition : not even to say it, 
for who cares except some of the men at the 
Museum ? What does Roland understand about 
the 1490 edition ? He probably thinks the latest 
edition is always the best, And I—a confounded 
fool—throwing away my money—your money, 
my poor child!—for I can’t take you with me, 
Dora, as you say. God forbid—God forbid ! ” 

“Well, father,” said Dora, who had gone 
through many questions with herself since the 
conversation in Miss Bethune’s room, “suppose 
we were to try and think how it is to be done. 
No doubt, as he is the doctor, however we rebel, 
he will make us do it at the last.” 

“How can he make us do it ? He cannot put 
money in my pocket, he cannot coin money, how¬ 
ever much he would like it; and if he could, I 
suppose he would keep it for himself.*’ 

“ I am not so sure of that, father.” 

“ I am sure of this, that he ought to, if he is 
not a fool. Every man ought to who has a spark 
of sense in him. I have not done it, and you see 
what happens. Roland may be a great idiot, but 
not so great an idiot as I.” 


A House in Bloomsbury. 2 13 

‘‘Oh, father, what is the use of talking like 
this ? Let us try and think how we are to do it,’' 
Dora cried. 

His renewed outcry that he could not do it, 
that it was not a thing to be thought of for a 
moment, was stopped by a knock at the door, at 
which, when Dora, after vainly bidding the un¬ 
known applicant come in, opened it, there ap¬ 
peared an old gentleman, utterly unknown to both, 
and whose appearance was extremely disturbing 
to the invalid newly issued from his sick room, and 
the girl who still felt herself his nurse and pro¬ 
tector. 

“ I hope I do not come at a bad moment,” 
the stranger said. “ I took the opportunity ot an 
open door to come straight up without having 
myself announced. I trust I may be pardoned 
for the liberty. Mr. Mannering, you do not re¬ 
collect me, but I have seen you before. I am 
Mr. Templar, of Gray’s Inn. I have something 
of importance to say to you, which will, I trust, 
excuse my intrusion.” 

“ Oh,” cried Dora. “ I am sure you cannot 
know that my father has been very ill. He is 
out of his room for the first time to-day.” 

The old gentleman said that he was very 
sorry, and then that he was very glad. “ That 
means in a fair way of recovery,” he said. “ I 
don’t know,” he added, addressing Mannering, 
who was pondering over him with a somewhat 
sombre countenance, “vv^hether I may speak to 
you about my business, Mr. Mannering, at such 
an early date : but I am almost forced to do so by 


214 A House in Bloomsbury, 

my orders : and whether you would rather hear my 
commission in presence of this young lady or not.” 

“ Where is it we have met ? ” Mannering said, 
with a more and more gloomy look. 

“ I will tell you afterwards, if you will hear me 
in the first place. I come to announce to you, 
Mr. Mannering, the death of a client of mine, who 
has left a very considerable fortune to your 
daughter, Dora Mannering—this young lady, I 
presume : and with it a prayer that the young 
lady, to whom she leaves everything, may be 
permitted to—may, with your consent-” 

“Oh,” cried Dora, “ I know! It is the poor 
lady from South America 1 ” And then she be¬ 
came silent and grew red. “ Father, I have hid 
something from you,” she said, faltering. “ I 
have seen a lady, forgive me, who was your 
enemy. She said you would never forgive her. 
Oh, how one’s sins find one out 1 It was not my 
fault that I went, and I thought you would never 
know. She was mamma’s sister, father.” 

“She was—who?” Mr. Mannering rose 
from his chair. He had been pale before, he 
became now livid, yellow, his thin cheek-bones 
standing out, his hollow eyes with aglow in them, 
his mouth drawn in. He towered over the two 
people beside him—Dora frightened and protest¬ 
ing, the visitor very calm and observant—looking 
twice his height in his extreme leanness and 
gauntness. “Who—who was it? Who?” His 
whole face asked the question. He stood a 
moment tottering, then dropped back in complete 
exhaustion into his chair. 



A House in Bloomsbury. 215 

“ Father,” cried Dora, “ I did not know who 
she was. She was very ill and wanted me. It 
was she who used to send me those things. Miss 
Bethune took me, it was only once, and I—I was 
there when she died.” The recollection choked 
her voice, and made her tremble. “Father, she 
said you would not forgive her, that you were 
never to be told ; but I could not believe,” cried 
Dora, “ that there was any one, ill or sorry, and 
very, very weak, and in trouble, whom you would 
not forgive.” 

Mr. Mannering sat gazing at his child, with 
his eyes burning in their sockets. At these words 
he covered his face with his hands. And there 
was silence, save for a sob of excitement from 
Dora, excitement so long repressed that it burst 
forth now with all the greater force. The visitor, 
for some time, did not say a word. Then sud¬ 
denly he put forth his hand and touched the elbow 
which rested like a sharp point on the table. 
He said softly : “It was the lady you imagine. 
She is dead. She has led a life of suffering and 
trouble. She has neither been well nor happy. 
Her one wish was to see her child before she 
died. When she was left free, as happened by 
death some time ago, she came to England for 
that purpose. I can’t tell you how much or how 
little the friends knew, who helped her. They 
thought it, I believe, a family quarrel.” 

Mr. Mannering uncovered his ghastly counte¬ 
nance. “It is better they should continue to 
think so.” 

“That is as you please. For my own part, 


2 i 6 a House in Bloomsbury. 

I think the child at least should know. The 
request, the prayer that was made on her death¬ 
bed in all humility, was that Dora should follow 
her remains to the grave.” 

‘‘To what good ” he cried, “ to what good ? ” 

“To no good. Have you forgotten her, that 
you ask that } I told her, if she had asked to see 
you, to get your forgiveness-” 

“Silence!” cried Mr. Mannering, lifting his 
thin hand as if with a threat. 

“ But she had not courage. She wanted only, 
she said, her own flesh and blood to stand by her 
grave.” 

Mannering made again a gesture with his 
hand, but no reply. 

“ She has left everything of which she died 
possessed—a considerable, I may say a large 
fortune—to her only child.” 

“ I refuse her fortune I ” cried Mannering, 
bringing down his clenched hand on the table 
with a feverish force that made the room ring. 

“You will not be so pitiless,” said the visitor; 
“ you will not pursue an unfortunate woman, v/ho 
never in her unhappy life meant-any harm.” 

“In her unhappy life!—in her pursuit of a 
happy life at any cost, that is what you mean.” 

“ I will not argue. She is dead. Say she 
was thoughtless, fickle. I can’t tell. She did 
only what she was justified in doing. She meant 
no harm.” 

“ I will allow no one,” cried Mr. Mannering, 
“to discuss the question with me. Your client, I 
understand, is dead,—it was proper, perhaps, that 



A House in Bloomsbmy. 217 

I should know,—and has left a fortune to my 
daughter. Well, I refuse it. There is no occa¬ 
sion for further parley. I refuse it. Dora, show 
this gentleman downstairs.’' 

There is only one thing to be said,” said the 
visitor, rising, “ you have not the power to refuse 
it. It is vested in trustees, of whom I am one. 
The young lady herself may take any foolish step 
—if you will allow me to say so—when she comes 
of age. But you have not the power to do this. 
The allowance to be made to her during her 
minority and all other particulars will be settled as 
soon as the arrangements are sufficiently advanced.” 

“ I tell you that I refuse it,” repeated Mr. 
Mannering. 

“ And I repeat that you have no power to do 
so. I leave her the directions in respect to the 
other event, in which you have full power. I im¬ 
plore you to use it mercifully,” the visitor said. 

He went away without any further farewell— 
Mannering, not moving, sitting at the table wdth 
his eyes fixed on the empty air. Dora, who had 
followed the conversation with astonished uncom¬ 
prehension, but with an acute sense of the incivil¬ 
ity with which the stranger had been treated, 
hurried to open the door for him, to offer him her 
hand, to make what apologies were possible. 

“ Father has been very ill,” she said. ‘‘ He 
nearly died. This is the first time he has been 
out of his room. I don’t understand what it all 
means, but please do not think he is uncivil. He 
is excited, and still ill and weak. I never in my 
life saw him rude to any one before.” 


2i8 a HotLse in Bloomsbury. 

“Never mind,” said the old gentleman, pausing 
outside the door ; “I can make allowances. You 
and I may have a great deal to do with each other, 
Miss Dora. I hope you will have confidence in 
me ? ” 

“ I don’t know what it all means,” Dora said. 

^‘No, but some day you will; and in the mean¬ 
time remember that some one, who has the best 
right to do so, has left you a great deal of money, 
and that whenever you want anything, or even 
wish for anything, you must come to me.” 

“A great deal of money?” Dora said. She had 
heard him speak of a fortune—a considerable for¬ 
tune, but the words had not struck her as these 
did. A great deal of money ? And money was 
all that was wanted to make everything smooth, 
and open out vistas of peace and pleasure, where 
all had been trouble and care. The sudden light¬ 
ing up of her countenance was as if the sun had 
come out all at once from among the clouds. The 
old gentleman, who, like so many old gentlemen, 
entertained cynical views, chuckled to see that 
even at this youthful age, and in Mannering’s 
daughter, who had refused it so fiercely, the 
name of a great deal of money should light 
up a girl’s face. “They are all alike,” he said to 
himself as he went downstairs. 

When Dora returned to the room, she found 
her father as she had left him, staring straight 
before him, seeing nothing, his head supported on 
his hands, his hollow eyes fixed. He did not 
notice her return, as he had not noticed her absence. 
What was she to do? One of those crises had 


A House in Bloomsbury, • 219 

arrived which are so petty, yet so important, 
when the wisest of women are reduced to semi¬ 
imbecility by an emergency not contemplated in 
any moral code. It was time for him to take his 
beef tea. The doctor had commanded that under 
no circumstances was this duty to be omitted or 
postponed ; but who could have foreseen such cir¬ 
cumstances as these, in which evidently matters of 
life and death w^ere going through his mind ? After 
such an agitating interview he wanted it more and 
more, the nourishment upon wTich his recovery 
depended. But how suggest it to a man whose 
mind was gone away into troubled roamings 
through the past, or still more troubled questions 
about the future? It could have been no small 
matters that had been brought back to Mr. 
Mannering’s mind by that strange visit. Dora, 
who was not weak-minded, trembled to approach 
him with any prosaic, petty suggestion. And yet 
how did she dare to pass it by ? Dora went 
about the room very quietly, longing to rouse yet 
unwilling to disturb him. How was she to speak 
of such a small matter as his beef tea ? And yet 
it was not a small matter She heard Gilchrist 
go into the other room, bringing it all ready on 
the little tray, and hurried thither to inquire what 
that experienced woman would advise. He has 
had some one to see him about business. He has 
been very much put out, dreadfully disturbed. I 
don’t know how to tell you how much. His 
mind is full of some dreadful thing I don’t under¬ 
stand How can I ask him to take his beef 
tea? And yet he must want it. He is looking 


2 20 A House in Bloomsbury. 

so ill. He is so worn but. Oh, Gilchrist, what 
am I to do ? ” 

‘‘It is just a very hard question, Miss Dora. 
He should not have seen any person on business. 
He’s no’ in a fit state to see anybody the first day 
he is out of his bedroom : though, for my part, I 
think he might have been out of his bedroom 
three or four days ago,” Gilchrist said. 

“ As if that was the question now ! The ques¬ 
tion is about the beef tea. Can I go and say, 
‘ Father, never mind whatever has happened, 
there is nothing so important as your beef tea ’ ? 
Can I tell him that everything else may come and 
go, but that beef tea runs on for ever ? Oh, Gil¬ 
christ, you are no good at all! Tell me what to do.” 

Dora could not help being light-hearted, 
though it was in the present circumstances so 
inappropriate, when she thought of that “great 
deal of money”—money that would sweep all bills 
away, that would make almost everything possible. 
That consciousness lightened more and more upon 
her, as she saw the little bundle of bills carefully 
labelled and tied up, which she had intended to re¬ 
move surreptitiously from her father’s room while 
he was out of it. With what comfort and satis¬ 
faction could she remove them now ! 

“Just put it down on the table by his side. 
Miss Dora,” said Gilchrist. “ Say no word, just 
put it there within reach of his hand. Maybe he 
will fly out at you, and ask if you think there’s 
nothing in the world so important as your con¬ 
founded--But no, he will not say that; he’s no’ 

a man that gets relief in that way. But, on the 



A House in Bloomsbury, 221 

other hand, he will maybe just be conscious that 
there’s a good smell, and he will feel he’s wanting 
something, and he will drink it off without more 
ado. But do not, Miss Dora, whatever you do, 
let more folk on business bother your poor papaw, 
for I could not answer for what might come of it. 
You had better let me sit here on the watch, and 
see that nobody comes near the door.” 

“ I will do what you say, and you can do what 
you like,” said Dora. She could almost have 
danced along the passage. Poor lady from 
America, who was dead! Dora had been very 
sorry. She had been much troubled by the in¬ 
terview about her which she did not understand : 
but even if father were pitiless, which was 
so incredible, it could do that poor woman no 
harm now: and the money—money which would be 
deliverance, which would pay all the bills, and 
leave the quarter’s money free to go to the country 
with, to go abroad with ! Dora had to tone her 
countenance down, not to look too guiltily glad 
when she went in to where her father was sitting 
in the same abstraction and gloom. But this time 
he observed her entrance, looking up as if he had 
been waiting for her. She had barely time to 
follow Gilchrist’s directions when he stretched out 
his hand and took hers, drawing her near to him. 
He was very grave and pale, but no longer so 
terrible as before. 

“Dora,” he said, ‘‘how often have you seen 
this lady of whom I have heard to-day ? ” 

“Twice, father; once in Miss Bethune’s room, 
where she had come, I don’t know how.” 


222 A House in Dloornsbury. 

“ In this house ? ” he said with a strong quiver, 
which Dora felt, as if it had been communicated 
to herself. 

“And the night before last, when Miss 
Bethune took me to where she was living, a long 
way off, by Hyde Park. I knelt at the bed a long 
time, and then they put me in a chair. She said 
many things I did not understand—but chiefly,” 
Dora said, her eyes filling with tears—the scene 
seemed to come before her more touchingly in 
recollection than when, to her wonder and dismay, 
it took place, “ chiefly that she loved me, that 
she had w^anted me all my life, and that she 
wished for me above everything before she 
died.” 

“ And then ? ” he said, with a catch in his 
breath. 

“ I don’t know, father; I was so confused and 
dizzy with being there so long. All of a sudden 
they took me away, and the others all came round 
the bed. And then there was nothing more. 
Miss Bethune brought me home. I understood 
that the lady—that my poor—my poor aunt—if 
that is what she was—was dead. Oh, father, 
whatever she did, forgive her now ! ” 

Dora for the m.oment had forgotten every¬ 
thing but the pity and the wonder, which she 
only now began to realise for the first time, of 
that strange scene. She saw, as if for the first 
time, the dark room, the twinkling lights, the 
ineffable smile upon the dying face : and her big 
tears fell fast upon her father’s hand, which held 
hers in a trembling grasp. The quiver that was 


A House in Bloomsbury. 223 

in him ran through and through her, so that she 
trembled too. 

‘‘Dora,” he said, “perhaps you ought to 
know, as that man said. The lady was not your 
aunt: she was your mother — my ” — there 
seemed a convulsion in his throat, as though he 
could not pronounce the word—“ my wife. And 
yet she was not to blame, as the world judges. 
I went on a long expedition after you were 
born, leaving her very young still, and poor. 
I did not mean her to be poor. I did not 
mean to be long away. But I went to Africa, 
which is terrible enough now, but was far more 
terrible in those days. I fell ill again and 
again. I was left behind for dead. I was 
lost in those dreadful wilds. It was more 
than three years before I came to the light of day 
at all, and it seemed a hundred. I had been 
given up by everybody. The money had failed 
her, her people were poor, the Museum gave her 
a small allowance as to the widow of a man killed 
in its service. And there was another man who 
loved her. They meant no harm, it is true. She 
did nothing that was wrong. She married him, 
thinking I was dead.” 

“Father!” Dora cried, clasping his arm with 
both her hands : his other arm supported his 
head. 

“It was a pity that I was not dead—that was 
the pity. If I had known, I should never have 
come back to put everything wrong. But I 
never heard a word till I came back. And she 
would not face me—never. She fled as if she 


224 A Hottse in Bloomsbury. 

had been guilty. She was not guilty, you know. 
She had only married again, which the best of 
women do. She fled by herself at first, leaving 
you to me. She said it was all she could do, but 
that she never, never could look me in the face 
again. It has not been that I could not forgive 
her, Dora. No, but we could not look each 
other in the face again.’’ 

“ Is it she,” said Dora, struggling to speak, 
“whose picture is in your cabinet, on its face? 
May I take it, father? I should like to have 
it.” 

He put his other arm round her and pressed 
her close. “ And after this,” he said, “ my little 
girl, we will never say a word on this subject 
again.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


The little old gentleman had withdrawn from the 
apartment of the Mannerings very quietly, leaving 
all that excitement and commotion behind him ; 
but he did not leave in this way the house in 
Bloomsbury. He went downstairs cautiously and 
quietly, though why he should have done so he 
could not himself have told, since, had he made 
all the noise in the world, it could have had no 
effect upon the matter in hand in either case. 
Then he knocked at Miss Bethune’s door. When 
he was bidden to enter, he opened the door gently, 
with great precaution, and going in, closed it with 
equal care behind him. 

“ I am speaking, I think, to Mrs. Gordon 
Grant ? ” he said. 

Miss Bethune was alone. She had many 
things to think of, and very likely the book which 
she seemed to be reading was not much more than 
a pretence to conceal her thoughts. It fell down 
upon her lap at these words, and she looked at her 
questioner with a gasp, unable to make any reply. 

“ Mrs. Gordon Grant, I believe ? ” he said 
again, then made a step farther into the room. 
“ Pardon me for startling you, there is no one 
here. I am a solicitor, John Templar, of Gray’s 
Inn. Precautions taken with other persons need 
(225) 15 


2 26 A HoiLse in Bloomsbury. 

not apply to me. You are Mrs. Gordon Grant, I 
know.” 

“ I have never borne that name,” she said, 
very pale. “ Janet Bethune, that is my name.” 

“ Not as signed to a document which is in my 
possession. You will pardon me, but this is no 
doing of mine. You witnessed Mrs. Bristows 
will ” 

She gave a slight nod with her head in acqui¬ 
escence. 

“ And then, to my great surprise, I found this 
name, which I have been in search of for so 
long.” 

“You have been in search of it ? ” 

“Yes, for many years. The skill with which 
you have concealed it is wonderful. I have 
advertised, even. I have sought the help of old 
friends who must see you often, who come to you 
here even, I know. But I never found the name 
I was in search of, never till the other day at the 
signing of Mrs. Bristow’s will—which, by the 
way,” he said, “that young fellow might have 
signed safely enough, for he has no share in it.” 

“ Do you mean to say that she has left him 
nothing—nothing, Mr. Templar? The boy that 
was like her son ! ” 

“Not a penny,” said the old gentleman—“ not 
a penny. Everything has gone the one way— 
perhaps it was not wonderful—to her own child.” 

“ I could not have done that! ” cried the lady. 
“ Oh, I could not have done it! I would have 
felt it would bring a curse upon my own child.” 

“ Perhaps, madam, you never had a child of 


A House in Bloomshiry. 227 

your own, which would make all the difference,” 
he said. 

She looked at him again, silent, with her lips 
pressed very closely together, and a kind of 
defiance in her eyes. 

“But this,” he said again, softly, “is no 
answer to my question. You were a witness of 
Mrs. Bristow’s will, and you signed a certain 
name to it You cannot have done so hoping to 
vitiate the document by a feigned name. It 
would have been perfectly futile to begin with, 
and no woman could have thought of such a thing. 
That was, I presume, your lawful name ” 

“It is a name I have never borne; that you 
will very easily ascertain.” 

“ Still it is your name, or why should you 
have signed it—in inadvertence, I suppose ” 

“Not certainly in inadvertence. Has any¬ 
thing ever made it familiar to me? If you will 
know, I had my reasons. I thought the sight of 
it might put things in a lawyer’s hands, would 
maybe guide inquiries, would make easier an 
object of my own.” 

“That object,” said Mr. Templar, “was to 
discover your husband ? ” 

She half rose to her feet, flushed and angry. 

“Who said I had a husband, or that to find 
him or lose him was anything to me ? ” Then, 
with a strong effort, she reseated herself in her 
chair. “ That was a bold guess,” she said, “ Mr. 
Templar, not to say a little insulting, don’t you 
think, to a respectable single lady that has never 
had a finger lifted upon her? I am of a well- 


2 28 A House in Bloomsbury. 

known race enough. I have never concealed 
myself. There are plenty of people in Scotland 
who will give you full details of me and all my 
ways. It is not like a lawyer—a cautious man, 
bound by his profession to be careful—to make 
such a strange attempt upon me.” 

“ I make no attempt. I only ask a question, 
and one surely most justifiable. You did not 
sign a name to which you had no right, on so 
important a document as a will; therefore you 
are Mrs. Gordon Grant, and a person to whom 
for many years I have had a statement to make.” 

She looked at him again with a dumb rigidity 
of aspect, but said not a word. 

The communication I had to make to you,” 
he said, “ was of a death—not one, so far as I 
know, that could bring you any advantage, or 
harm either, I suppose. I may say that it took 
place years ago. I have no reason, either, to 
suppose that it would be the cause of any deep 
sorrow.” 

“ Sorrow ? ” she said, but her lips were dry, 
and could articulate no more. 

“ I have nothing to do with your reasons for 
having kept your marriage so profound a secret,” 
he said. “The result has naturally been the long 
delay of a piece of information which perhaps 
would have been welcome to you. Mrs. Grant, 
your husband, George Gordon Grant, died nearly 
twenty years ago.” 

“ Twenty years ago ! ” she cried, with a start, 
“twenty years?” Then she raised her voice 
suddenly and cried, “ Gilchrist! ” She was very 


229 


A House in Bloo7nsbury. 

pale, and her excitement great, her eyes gleaming, 
her nerves quivering. She paid no attention to 
the little lawyer, who on his side observed her so 
closely* “ Gilchrist,” she said, when the maid 
came in hurriedly from the inner room in which 
she had been, “we have often wondered why there 
was no sign of him when I came into my fortune. 
The reason is he was dead before my uncle died.” 

“ Dead ? ” said Gilchrist, and put up at once 
her apron to her eyes, “ dead } Oh, mem, that 
bonnie young man ! ” 

“Yes,” said Miss Bethune. She rose up and 
began to move about the room in great excite¬ 
ment. “Yes, he would still be a bonnie young 
man then—oh, a bonnie young man, as his son is 
now. I wondered how it was he made no sign. 
Before, it was natural : but when my uncle was 
dead—when I had come into my fortune! That 
explains it—that explains it all. He was dead 
before the day he had reckoned on came.” 

“ Oh, dinna say that, now ! ” cried Gilchrist. 
“ How can we tell if it was the day he had 
reckoned on ? Why might it no’ be your comfort 
he w^as aye thinking of—that you might lose 
nothing, that your uncle might keep his faith in 
you, that your fortune might be safe } ” 

“ Ay, that my fortune might be safe, that was 
the one thing. What did it matter about me.^ 
Only a woman that was so silly as to believe in 
him—and believed in him, God help me, long 
after he had proved what he was. Gilchrist, go 
down on your knees and thank God that he did 
not live to cheat us more, to come when you and 


230 A House in Bloomsbury. 

me made sure he would come, and fleece us with 
his fair face and his fair ways, till he had got 
what he wanted,—the filthy money which was the 
end of all.” 

“ Oh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, again weeping, 
“ dinna say that now. Even if it were true, 
which the Lord forbid, dinna say it now ! ” 

But her mistress was not to be controlled. 
The stream of recollection, of pent-up feeling, the 
brooding of a lifetime, set free by this sudden 
discovery of her story, which was like the break¬ 
ing down of a dyke to a river, rushed forth like 
that river in flood. “ I have thought many a 
time,” she cried,—“when my heart was sick of 
the silence, when I still trembled that he would 
come, and wished he would come for all that I 
knew, like a fool woman that I am, as all women 
are,—that maybe his not coming was a sign of 
grace, that he had maybe forgotten, maybe been 
untrue; but that it was not at least the money, the 
money and nothing more. To know that I had 
that accursed siller and not to come for it was a 
sign of grace. I was a kind of glad. But it was 
not that! ” she cried, pacing to and fro like a 
wild creature,—“ it was not that 1 He would 
have come, oh, and explained everything, made 
everything clear, and told me to my face it was 
for my sake!—if it had not been that death 
stepped in and disappointed him as he had dis¬ 
appointed me 1 ” 

Miss Bethune ended with a harsh laugh, and 
after a moment seated herself again in her chair. 
The tempest of personal feeling had carried her 


A House in Bloomsbury. 231 

away, quenching even the other and yet stronger 
sentiment, which for so many years had been the 
passion of her life. She had been suddenly, 
strangely driven back to a period which even now, 
in her sober middle age, it was a kind of madness 
to think of—the years which she had lived through 
in awful silence, a wife yet no wife, a mother yet no 
mother, cut off from everything but the monoton¬ 
ous, prolonged, unending formula of a girlhood 
out of date, the life without individuality, without 
meaning, and without hope, of a large-minded and 
active woman, kept to the role of a child, in a 
house where there was not even affection to 
sweeten it. The recollection of those terrible, 
endless, changeless days, running into years as 
indistinguishable, the falsehood of every circum¬ 
stance and appearance, the secret existence of love 
and sacrifice, of dread knowledge and disenchant¬ 
ment, of strained hope and failing illusion, and 
final and awful despair, of which Gilchrist alone 
knew anything,—Gilchrist, the faithful servant, 
the sole companion of her heart,—came back 
upon her with all that horrible sense of the in¬ 
tolerable which such a martyrdom brings. She 
had borne it in its day—how had she borne it ? 
Was it possible that a woman could go through 
that and live ? her heart torn from her bosom, her 
baby torn from her side, and no one, no one but 
Gilchrist, to keep a little life alive in her heart! 
And it had lasted for years—many, many, many 
years,—all the years of her life, except those first 
twenty which tell for so little. In that rush of 
passion she did not know how time passed. 


232 A House in Bloomsbury. 

whether it was five minutes or an hour that she 
sat under the inspection of the old lawyer, whom 
this puzzle of humanity filled with a sort of pro¬ 
fessional interest, and who did not think it neces¬ 
sary to withdraw, or had any feeling of intrusion 
upon the sufferer. It was not really a long time, 
though it might have been a year, when she 
roused herself and took hold of her forces, and the 
dread panorama rolled away. 

Gradually the familiar things around her came 
back. She remembered herself, no despairing girl, 
no soul in bondage, but a sober woman, disen¬ 
chanted in many ways, but never yet cured of 
those hopes and that faith which hold the ardent 
spirit to life. Her countenance changed with her 
thoughts, her eyes ceased to be abstracted and 
visionary, her colour came back. She turned to 
the old gentleman with a look which for the first 
time disturbed and bewildered that old and hard¬ 
ened spectator of the vicissitudes of life. Her eyes 
filled with a curious liquid light, an expression 
wistful, flattering, entreating. She looked at him 
as a child looks who has a favour to ask, her head 
a little on one side, her lips quivering with a smile. 
There came into the old lawyer’s mind, he could 
not tell how, a ridiculous sense of being a superior 
being, a kind of god, able to confer untold advan¬ 
tages and favours. What did the woman want of 
him? What—it did not matter what she wanted— 
could he do for her ? Nothing that he was aware 
of: and a sense of the danger of being cajoled came 
into his mind, but along with that, which was 
ridiculous, though he could not help it, a sense of 


A House in Bloomsbury. 233 

being* really a superior being, able to grant favours, 
and benignant, as he had never quite known him¬ 
self to be. 

“Mr. Templar,” she said, “now all is over 
there is not another word to say : and now the 
boy—my boy ” 

“ The boy ? ” he repeated, with a surprised air. 

“ My child that was taken from me as soon as 
he was born, my little helpless bairn that never 
knew his mother—my son, my son! Give me a 
right to him, give me my lawful title to him, and 
there can be no more doubt about it—that nobody 
may say he is not mine.” 

The old lawyer was more confused than words 
could say. The very sense she had managed to 
convey to his mind of being a superior being, full 
of graces and gifts to confer, made his downfall 
the more ludicrous to himself. He seemed to 
tumble down from an altitude quite visionary, yet 
very real, as if by some neglect or ill-will of his 
own. He felt himself humiliated, a culprit before 
her. “My dear lady,” he said, “you are going 
too fast and too far for me. I did not even know 

there was any- Stop! I think I begin to 

remember.” 

“ Yes,” she said, breathless,—“ yes ! ” looking 
at him with supplicating eyes. 

“ Now it comes back to me,” he said. “ I—I 
—am afraid I gave it no importance. There was 
a baby—yes, a little thing a few weeks, or a few 
months old—that died.” 

She sprang up again once more to her feet, 
menacing, terrible. She was bigger, stronger, far 




2 34 ^ House in Bloomsbury. 

more full of life, than he was. She towered over 
him, her face full of tragic passion. “It is not 
true—it is not true! ” she cried. 

“ My dear lady, how can I know ? What can 
I do ? I can but tell you the instructions given 
to me; it had slipped out of my mind, it seemed 
of little importance in comparison. A baby that 
was too delicate to bear the separation from its 
mother—I remember it all now. I am very sorry, 
very sorry, if I have conveyed any false hopes to 
your mind. The baby died not long after it was 
taken away.” 

“It is not true,” Miss Bethune said, with a 
hoarse and harsh voice. After the excitement 
and passion, she stood like a figure cut out of 
stone. This statement, so calm and steady, 
struck her like a blow. Her lips denied, but her 
heart received the cruel news. It may be neces¬ 
sary to explain good fortune, but misery comes 
with its own guarantee. It struck her like a 
sword, like a scythe, shearing down her hopes. 
She rose into a brief blaze of fury, denying it. 
“ Oh, you think I will believe that ? ” she cried, 
—“ me that have followed him in my thoughts 
through every stage, have seen him grow and 
blossom, and come to be a man ! Do you think 
there would have been no angel to stop me in my 
vain imaginations, no kind creature in heaven or 
earth that would have breathed into my heart and 
said, ‘ Go on no more, hope no more ’ ? Oh no— 
oh no! Heaven is not like that, nor earth ! Pain 
comes and trouble, but not cruel fate. No, I do not 
believe it—I will not believe it! It is not true.” 


A House in Bloomsbury, 235 

“ My dear lady,” said the old gentleman, dis¬ 
tressed. 

“ I am no dear lady to you. I am nothing to 
you. I am a poor, deserted, heartbroken woman, 
that have lived false, false, but never meant it: 
that have had no one to stand by me, to help me 
out of it. And now you sit there calm, and look 
me in the face, and take away my son. My baby 
first was taken from me, forced out of my arms, 
new-born : and now you take the boy I’ve fol¬ 
lowed with my heart these long, long years, the 
bonnie lad, the young man I’ve seen. I tell you 
I’ve seen him, then. How can a mother be de¬ 
ceived ? We’ve seen him, both Gilchrist and me. 
Ask her, if you doubt my word. We have seen 
him, can any lie stand against that? And my 
heart has spoken, and his heart has spoken ; we 
have sought each other in the dark, and taken 
hands. I know him by his bonnie eyes, and a 
trick in his mouth that is just my father over 
again : and he knows me by nature, and the touch 
of kindly blood.” 

“ Oh, mem,” Gilchrist cried, “ I warned ye—I 
warned ye! What is a likeness to lippen to ? 
And I never saw it,” the woman said, with tears. 

“ And who asked ye to see it, or thought ye 
could see it, a serving-woman, not a drop’s blood 
to him or to me? It would be a bonnie thing,” 
said Miss Bethune, pausing, looking round, as if 
to appeal to an unseen audience, with an almost 
smile of scorn, “if my hired woman’s word was to 
be taken instead of his mother’s. Did she bear 
him in pain and anguish ? Did she wait for him, 


236 A House in Bloomsbury, 

lying dreaming, month after month,, that he was 
to cure all ? She got him in her arms when he 
was born, but he had been in mine for long before; 
he had grown a man in my heart before ever he 
saw the light of day. Oh, ask her, and there is 
many a fable she will tell ye. But me! ”—she 
calmed down again, a smile came upon her face,— 
“ I have seen my son. Now, as I have nobody 
but him, he has nobody but me : and I mean from 
this day to take him home and acknowledge him 
before all the world.” 

Mr. Templar had risen, and stood with his 
hand on the back of his chair. “ I have nothing 
more to say,” he said. “ If I can be of any use to 
you in any way, command me, madam. It is no 
wish of mine to take any comfort from you, or 
even to dispel any pleasing illusion.” 

“As if you could!” she said, rising again, 
proud and smiling. “As if any old lawyer^s 
words, as dry as dust, could shake my conviction, 
or persuade me out of what is a certainty. It is a 
certainty. Seeing is believing, the very vulgar 
say. And I have seen him—do you think you 
could make me believe after that, that there is no 
one to see ” 

He shook his head and turned away. “ Good¬ 
morning to you, ma’am,” he said. “ I have told 
you the truth, but I cannot make you believe it, 
and why should I try.^^ It may be happier for 
you the other way.” 

“Happier.^” she said, with a laugh. “Ay, 
because it’s true. Falsehood has been my fate too 
long—I am happy because it is true.” 


A House in Bloomshtry. 237 

Miss Bethune sat down again, when her 
visitor closed the door behind him. The triumph 
and brightness gradually died out of her face. 
“What are you greetin’ there for, you fool.^” she 
said, “ and me the happiest woman, and the 
proudest mother! Gilchrist,” she said, suddenly 
turning round upon her maid, “ the woman that is 
dead was a weak creature, bound hand and foot 
all her life. She meant no harm, poor thing, I 
will allow, but yet she broke one man’s life in 
pieces, and it must have been a poor kind of 
happiness she gave the other, with her heart 
always straying after another man’s bairn. And 
I’ve done nothing, nothing to injure any mortal. 
I was true till I could be true no longer, till he 
showed all he was ; and true I have been in spite 
of that all my life, and endured and never said a 
word. Do you think it’s possible, possible that 
yon woman should be rewarded with her child in 
her arms, and her soul satisfied?—and me left 
desolate, with my very imaginations torn from me, 
torn out of me, and my heart left bleeding, and all 
my thoughts turned into lies, like myself, that 
have been no better than a lie ?—turned into lies ? ” 
Oh, mem!” cried Gilchrist—“oh, my dear 
leddy, that has been more to me than a’ this 
world I Is it for me to say that it’s no’ justice we 
have to expect, for we deserve nothing ; and that 
the Lord knows His ain reasons ; and that the 
time will come when we’ll get it all back—you, 
your bairn, the Lord bless him ! and me to see ye 
as happy as the angels, which is all I ever wanted 
or thought to get either here or otherwhere! ” 


CHAPTER XX. 


There was nothing more said to Mr. Mannering 
on the subject of Mr Templar’s mission, neither 
did he himself say anything, either to sanction or 
prevent his child from carrying out the strange 
desire of her mother—her mother! Dora did not 
accept the thought. She made a struggle within 
herself to keep up the fiction that it was her 
mother’s sister—a relation, something near, yet 
ever inferior to the vision of a benignant, melan¬ 
choly being, unknown, which a dead mother so 
often IS to an imaginative girl. 

It pleased her to find, as she said to herself, 
no likeness ” to the suffering and hysterical 
woman she had seen, in that calm, pensive 
portrait, which she instantly secured and took 
possession of—the little picture which had lain so 
long buried with its face downward in the secret 
drawer. She gazed at it for an hour together, 
and found nothing—nothing, she declared to 
herself with indignant satisfaction, to remind her 
of the other face—flushed, weeping, middle-aged 
—which had so implored her affection Had it 
been her mother, was it possible that it should 
have required an effort to give that affection ? 
No! Dora at sixteen believed very fully in the 
voice of nature. It would have been impossible, 
her heart at once would have spoken, she would 
(238) 


A House ifi Bloomsbury, 239 

have known by some infallible instinct. She put 
the picture up in her own room, and filled her 
heart with the luxury, the melancholy, the sadness, 
and pleasure of this possession—her mother’s 
portrait, more touching to the imagination than 
any other image could be. But then there began 
to steal a little shadow over Dora’s thoughts. 
She would not give up her determined resistance 
to the idea that this face and the other face, living 
and dying, which she had seen, could be one ; 
but when she raised her eyes suddenly, to her 
mother’s picture, a consciousness would steal over 
her, an involuntary glance of recognition. What 
more likely than that there should be a resem¬ 
blance, faint and far away, between sister and 
sister And then there came to be a gleam of 
reproach to Dora in those eyes, and the girl began 
to feel as if there was an irreverence, a want of 
feeling, in turning that long recluse and covered 
face to the light of day, and carrying on all the 
affairs of life under it, as if it were a common 
thing. Finally she arranged over it a little piece 
of drapery, a morsel of faded embroidered silk 
which was among her treasures, soft and faint in 
its colours—a veil which she could draw in her 
moments of thinking and quiet, those moments 
which it would not be irreverent any longer to 
call a dead mother or an angelic presence to 
hallow and to share. 

But she said nothing when she was called to 
Miss Bethune’s room, and clad in mourning, 
recognising with a thrill, half of horror, half of 
pride, the crape upon her dress which proved her 


240 A House in Bloomsbttry. 

right to that new exaltation among human 
creatures—that position of a mourner which is in 
its way a step in life. Dora did not ask where 
she was going when she followed Miss Bethune, 
also in black from head to foot, to the plain little 
brougham which had been ordered to do fit and 
solemn honour to the occasion ; the great white 
wreath and basket of flowers, which filled up 
the space, called no observation from her. They 
drove in silence to the great cemetery, with all 
its gay flowers and elaborate aspect of cheerful¬ 
ness. It was a fine but cloudy day, warm and 
soft, yet without sunshine; and Dora had a 
curious sense of importance, of meaning, as if she 
had attained an advanced stage of being. Already 
an experience had fallen to her share, more than 
one experience. She had knelt, troubled and 
awe-stricken, by a death-bed ; she was now going 
to stand by a grave. Even where real sorrow 
exists, this curious sorrowful elation of sentiment 
is apt to come into the mind of the very young. 
Dora was deeply impressed by the circumstances 
and the position, but it was impossible that she 
could feel any real grief Tears came to her eyes 
as she dropped the shower of flowers, white and 
lovely, into the darkness of that last abode. Her 
face was full of awe and pity, but her breast of 
that vague, inexplainable expansion and growth, 
as of a creature entered into the larger develop¬ 
ments and knowledge of life There were very 
few other mourners. Mr. Templar, the lawyer, 
with his keen but veiled observation of every¬ 
thing, serious and businesslike ; the doctor, with 


A House in Bloomsbury, 241 

professional gravity and indifference; Miss 
Bethune, with almost stern seriousness, standing 
like a statue in her black dress and with her pale 
face. Why should any of these spectators care ? 
The woman was far the most moved, thinking of 
the likeness and difference of her own fate, of the 
failure of that life which was now over, and of her 
own, a deeper failure still, without any fault of 
hers. And Dora, wondering, developing, her 
eyes full of abstract tears, and her mind of awe. 

Only one mourner stood pale with watching and 
thought beside the open grave, his heart aching 
with loneliness and a profound natural vacancy 
and pain. He knew that she had neglected him, 
almost wronged him at the last, cut him off, taking 
no thought of what was to become of him. He 
felt even that in so doing this woman was unfaith¬ 
ful to her trust, and had done what she ought not 
to have done. But all that mattered nothing in 
face of natural sorrow, natural love. She had 
been a mother to him, and she was gone. The 
ear always open to his boyish talk and confidence, 
always ready to listen, could hear him no more; 
and, almost more poignant, his care of her was 
over, there was nothing more to do for her, none 
of the hundred commissions that used to send him 
flying, the hundred things that had to be done. 
His occupation in life seemed to be over, his home, 
his natural place. It had not perhaps ever been 
a natural place, but he had not felt that. She had 
been his mother, though no drop of her blood ran 
in his veins; and now he was nobody’s son, belong¬ 
ing to no family. The other people round looked 


242 A House in Bloo^nsbury. 

like ghosts to Harry Gordon. They were part of 
the strange cutting off, the severance he already 
felt; none of them had anything to do with her, 
and yet it was he who was pushed out and put 
aside, as if he had nothing to do with her, the only 
mother he had ever known! The little sharp old 
lawyer was her representative now, not he who 
had been her son. He stood languid, in a mo¬ 
ment of utter depression, collapse of soul and 
body, by the grave. When all was over, and the 
solemn voice which sounds as no other voice ever 
does, falling calm through the still air, bidding 
earth return to earth, and dust to dust, had ceased, 
he still stood as if unable to comprehend that all 
was over—no one to bid him come away, no other 
place to go to. His brain was not relieved by 
tears, or his mind set in activity by anything to 
do. He stood there half stupefied, left behind, in 
that condition when simply to remain as we are 
seems the only thing possible to us. 

Miss Bethune had placed Dora in the little 
brougham, in rigorous fulfilment of her duty to 
the child. Mr. Templar and the doctor had both 
departed, the two other women, Mrs. Bristow’s 
maid and the nurse who had accompanied her, 
had driven away : and still the young man stood, 
not paying any attention. Miss Bethune waited 
for a little by the carriage door. She did not 
answer the appeal of the coachman, asking if he 
was to drive away; she said nothing to Dora, 
whose eyes endeavoured in vain to read the 
changes in her friend’s face; but, after standing 
there for a few minutes quite silent, she suddenly 


A House in Bloomsbury. 243 

turned and went back to the cemetery. It was 
strange to her to hesitate in anything she did, 
and from the moment she left the carriage door 
all uncertainty was over. She went back with a 
quick step, treading her way among the graves, 
and put her hand upon young Gordon’s arm. 

“ You are coming home with me,” she said. 

The new, keen voice, irregular and full of life, 
so unlike the measured tones to which he had 
been listening, struck the young man uneasily in 
the midst of his melancholy reverie, which was 
half trance, half exhaustion. He moved a step 
away, as if to shake off the interruption, scarcely 
conscious what, and not at all who it was. 

My dear young man, you must come home 
with me,” she said again. 

He looked at her, with consciousness re-awak¬ 
ening, and attempted to smile, with his natural 
ready response to every kindness. “It is you,” 
he said, and then, “ I might have known it could 
only be you.” 

What did that mean ? Nothing at all. Merely 
his sense that the one person who had spoken 
kindly to him, looked tenderly at him (though he 
had never known why, and had been both amused 
and embarrassed by the consciousness), was the 
most likely among all the strangers by whom he 
was surrounded to be kind to him now. But it 
produced an effect upon Miss Bethune which was 
far beyond any meaning it bore. 

A great light seemed suddenly to blaze over 
her face ; her eyes, which had been so veiled and 
stern, awoke; every line of a face which could be 


244 ^ House in Bloomsbury. 

harsh and almost rigid in repose, began to melt 
and soften; her composure, which had been 
almost solemn, failed ; her lip began to quiver, 
tears came dropping upon his arm, which she 
suddenly clasped with both her hands, clinging to 
it. “You say right,” she cried, “my dear, my 
dear!—more right than all the reasons. It is you 
and nature that makes everything clear. You are 
jusi coming home with me.” 

“I don’t seem,” he said, “to know what the 
word means.” 

“ But you will soon learn again. God bless 
the good woman that cherished you and loved 
you, my bonnie boy. I’ll not say a word against 
her—oh, no, no ! God’s blessing upon her as she 
lies there. I will never grudge a good word you 
say of her, never a regret. But now ”—she put 
her arm within his with a proud and tender 
movement, which so far penetrated his languor 
as to revive the bewilderment which he had felt 
before—“ now you are coming home with me.” 

He did not resist; he allowed himself to be 
led to the little carriage and packed into it, which 
was not quite an easy thing to do. On another 
occasion he would have laughed and protested; 
but on this he submitted gravely to whatever was 
required of him, thankful, in the failure of all 
motive, to have some one to tell him what to do, 
to move him as if he were an automaton. He sat 
bundled up on the little front seat, with Dora’s 
wondering countenance opposite to him, and that 
other inexplicable face, inspired and lighted up 
with tenderness. He had not strength enough to 


A House in Bloomsbury. 245 

inquire why this stranger took possession of him 
so; neither could Dora tell, who sat opposite to 
him, her mind awakened, her thoughts busy. 
This was the almost son of the woman who they 
said was Dora’s mother. What was he to Dora? 
Was he the nearer to her, or the farther from her, 
for that relationship ? Did she like him better or 
worse for having done everything that it ought, 
they said, have been her part to do ? 

These questions were all confused in Dora’s 
mind, but they were not favourable to this new 
interloper into her life—he who had known about 
her for years while she had never heard of him. 
She sat very upright, reluctant to make room for 
him, yet scrupulously doing so, and a little indig¬ 
nant that he should thus be brought in to interfere 
with her own claims to the first place. The drive 
to Bloomsbury seemed very long in these circum¬ 
stances, and it was indeed a long drive. They 
all came back into the streets after the long 
suburban road with a sense almost of relief in the 
growing noise, the rattle of the causeway, and 
sound of the carts and carriages—which made it 
unnecessary, as it had been impossible for them, 
to say anything to each other, and brought back 
the affairs of common life to dispel the influences 
of the solemn moment that was past. 

When they had reached Miss Bethune’s rooms, 
and returned altogether to existence, and the sight 
of a table spread for a meal, it was a shock, but 
not an ungrateful one. Miss Bethune at once 
threw off the gravity which had wrapped her like 
a cloak, when she put away her black bonnet. 


246 A House in Bloomsbury, 

She bade Gilchrist hurry to have the luncheon 
brought up. “ These two young creatures have 
eaten nothing, I am sure, this day. Probably 
they think they cannot: but when food is set 
before them they will learn better. Haste ye, 
Gilchrist, to have it served up. No, Dora, you 
will stay with me too. Your father is a troubled 
man this day. You will not go in upon him with 
that cloud about you, not till you are refreshed 
and rested, and have got your colour and your 
natural look back. And you, my bonnie man! ” 
She could not refrain from touching, caressing his 
shoulder as she passed him ; her eyes kept filling 
with tears as she looked at him. He for his part 
moved and took his place as she told him, still in 
a dream. 

It was a curious meal, more daintily prepared 
and delicate than usual, and Miss Bethune was a 
woman who at all times was “very particular,” 
and exercised all the gifts of the landlady, whose 
other lodgers demanded much less of her. And 
the mistress of the little feast was still less as 
usual. She scarcely sat down at her own table, 
but served her young guests with anxious care, 
carving choice morsels for them, watching their 
faces, their little movements of impatience, and 
the gradual development of natural appetite, which 
came as the previous spell gradually wore off. 
She talked all the time, her countenance a little 
flushed and full of emotion, her eyes moist and 
shining, with frequent sallies at Gilchrist, who 
hovered round the table waiting upon the young 
guests, and in her excitement making continual 


A House in Bloomsbury, 247 

mistakes and stumblings, which soon roused Dora 
to laugh, and Harry to apologise. 

“ It is all right,” he cried, when Miss Bethune 
at last made a dart at her attendant, and gave her, 
what is called in feminine language, “a shake,” to 
bring her to herself. 

“Are you out of your wits, womanMiss 
Bethune exclaimed. “Go away and leave me to 
look after the bairns, if ye cannot keep your head. 
Are you out of your wits ? ” 

“ Indeed, mem, and I have plenty of reason, 
Gilchrist said, weeping, and feeling for her apron, 
while the dish in her hand wavered wildly; and 
then it was that Harry Gordon, coming to him¬ 
self, cried out that it was all right. 

“ And I «am going to have some of that,” he 
added, steadying the kind creature, whose instinct 
of service had more effect than either encourage¬ 
ment or reproof. And this little touch of reality 
settled him too. He began to respond a little, to 
rouse himself, even to see the humour of the 
situation, at which Dora had begun to laugh, but 
which brought a soft moisture, in which was ease 
and consolation, to his eyes. 

It was not until about an hour later that Miss 
Bethune was left alone with the young man. He 
had begun by this time to speak about himself. 
“ I am not so discouraged as you think,” he said, 
“ I don’t seem to be afraid. After all, it doesn’t 
matter much, does it, what happens to a young 
fellow all alone in the world? It’s only me, any¬ 
how. I have no wife,” he said, with a faint laugh, 
“ no sister to be involved—nothing but my own 


248 A House in Bloomsbury. 

rather useless person, a thing of no account. It 
wasn’t that that knocked me down. It was just 
the feeling of the end of everything, and that she 
was laid there that had been so good to me—so 
good—and nothing ever to be done for her any 
more.” 

“ I can forgive you that,” said Miss Bethune, 
with a sort of sob in her throat. “ And yet she 
was ill to you, unjust at the last.” 

“No, not that. I have had everything, too 
much for a man capable of earning his living to 
accept—but then it seemed all so natural, it was 
the common course of life. I was scarcely waking 
up to see that it could not be.” 

“And a cruel rousing you have had at last, 
my poor boy.” 

“ No,” he said steadily, “ I will never allow it 
was cruel ; it has been sharp and effectual. It 
couldn’t help being effectual, could it ? since I 
have no alternative. The pity is I am good for 
so little. No education to speak of.” 

“You shall have education—as much as you 
can set your face to.” 

He looked up at her with a little air of sur¬ 
prise, and shook his head. “ No,” he said, “ not 
now. I am too old. I must lose no more time. 
The thing is, that my work will be worth so much 
less, being guided by no skill. Skill is a beauti¬ 
ful thing. I envy the very scavengers,” he said 
(who were working underneath the window), “ for 
piling up their mud like that, straight. I should 
never get it straight.” The poor young fellow 
was so near tears that he was glad from time to 


A House in Dloontsbury. 249 

time to have a chance of a feeble laugh, which 
relieved him. “And that is humble enough! I 
think much the best thing for me will be to go 
back to South America. There are people who 
know me, who would give me a little place where 
I could learn. Book-keeping can’t be such a 
tremendous mystery. There’s an old clerk or 
two of my guardians ”—here he paused to swal¬ 
low down the climbing sorrow—“ who would 
give me a hint or two. And if the pay was very 
small at first, why, I’m not an extravagant 
fellow.” 

“ Are you sure of that ? ” his confidante said. 

He looked at her again, surprised, then 
glanced at himself and his dress, which was not 
economical, and reddened and laughed again. “ I 
am afraid you are right,” he said. “ I haven’t 
known much what economy was. I have lived 
like the other people; but I am not too old to 
learn, and I should not mind in the least what I 
looked like, or how I lived, for a time. Things 
would get better after a time.” 

They were standing together near the window, 
for he had begun to roam about the room as he 
talked, and she had risen from her chair with one 
of the sudden movements of excitement. “ There 
will be no need,” she said,—“ there will be no 
need. Something will be found for you at home.” 

He shook his head. “You forget it is scarcely 
home to me. And what could I do here that 
would be worth paying me for 1 I must no more 
be dependent upon kindness. Oh, don’t think 
I do not feel kindness. What should I have 


250 A House in Bloomsbury, 

done this miserable day but for you, who have 
been so good to me—as good as—as a mother, 
though I had no claim ? ” 

She gave a great cry, and seized him by both 
his hands. Oh, lad, if you knew what you were 
saying! That word to me, that have died for it, 
and have no claim ! Gilchrist, Gilchrist! ” she 
cried, suddenly dropping his hands again, come 
here and speak to me ! Help me ! have pity upon 
me! For if this is not him, all nature and God’s 
against me. Come here before I speak or die ! 


CHAPTER XXL 

It was young Gordon himself, alarmed but not 
excited as by any idea of a new discovery which 
could affect his fatq, who brought Miss Bethune 
back to herself, far better than Gilchrist could do, 
who had no art but to weep and entreat, and then 
yield to her mistress whatever she might wish. 
A quelque chose malheur est bon. He had been 
in the habit of soothing and calming down an 
excitable, sometimes hysterical woman, whose 
acces des nerfs meant nothing, or were, at least, 
supposed to mean nothing, except indeed nerves, 
and the ups and downs which are characteristic 
of them. He was roused by the not dissimilar 
outburst of feeling or passion, wholly incompre¬ 
hensible to him from any other point of view, to 
which his new friend had given way. He took it 
very quietly, with the composure of use and wont. 
The sight of her emotion and excitement brought 
him quite back to himself. He could imagine no 
reason whatever for it, except the sympathetic 
effect of all the troublous circumstances in which 
she had been, without any real reason, involved. 
It was her sympathy, her kindness for himself 
and for Dora, he had not the least doubt, which, 
by bringing her into those scenes of pain and 
trouble, and associating her so completely with 
the complicated and intricate story, had brought 

(251) 


252 A House in Bloomsbury. 

on this “ attack.” What he had known to be 
characteristic of the one woman with whom he 
had been in familiar intercourse for so long a 
period of his life seemed to Harry characteristic 
of all women. He was quite equal to the occa¬ 
sion. Dr. Roland himself, who would have been 
so full of professional curiosity, so anxious to 
make out what it was all about, as perhaps to 
lessen his promptitude in action, would scarcely 
have been of so much real use as Harry, who had 
no arriere pensee, but addressed himself to the 
immediate emergency with all his might. He 
soothed the sufferer, so that she was soon relieved 
by copious floods of tears, which seemed to him 
the natural method of getting rid of all that 
emotion and excitement, but which surprised 
Gilchrist beyond description, and even Miss 
Bethune herself, whose complete breakdown was 
so unusual and unlike her. He left her quite at 
ease in his mind as to her condition, having per¬ 
suaded her to lie down, and recommended Gil¬ 
christ to darken the room, and keep her mistress 
in perfect quiet. 

“ I will go and look after my things,” he said, 
“ and ril come back when I have made all my 
arrangements, and tell you everything. Oh, don’t 
speak now ! You will be all right in the evening 
if you keep quite quiet now : and if you will give 
me your advice then, it will be very, very grateful 
•to me.” He made a little warning gesture, keep¬ 
ing her from replying, and then kissed her hand 
and went away. He had himself pulled down the 
blind to subdue a little of the garish July daylight. 


A House in Bloomsbury. 253 

and placed her on a sofa in the corner — ministra¬ 
tions which both mistress and maid permitted with 
bewilderment, so strange to them was at once the 
care and the authority of such proceedings. They 
remained, Miss Bethune on the sofa, Gilchrist, 
open-mouthed, staring at her, until the door was 
heard to close upon the young man. Then Miss 
Bethune rose slowly, with a kind of awe in her 
face. 

“ As soon as you think he is out of sight,” she 
said, “ Gilchrist, we’ll have up the blinds again, 
but not veesibly, to go against the boy.” 

“ Eh, mem,” cried Gilchrist, between laughing 
and crying, “ to bid me darken the roorn, and you 
that canna abide the dark, night or day! ” 

“It was a sweet thought, Gilchrist — all the 
pure goodness of him and the kind heart.” 

“ I am not saying, mem, but what the young 
gentleman has a very kind heart.” 

“You are not saying? And what can you 
know beyond what’s veesible to every person that 
sees him? It is more than that. Gilchrist, you 
and all the rest, what do I care what you say? If 
that is not the voice of nature, what is there to 
trust to in this whole world ? Why should that 
young lad, bred up so different, knowing nothing 
of me or my ways, have taken to me ? Look at 
Dora. What a difference! She has no instinct, 
nothing drawing her to her poor mother. That 
was a most misfortunate woman, but not an ill 
woman, Gilchrist. Look how she has done by 
mine ! But Dora has no leaning towards her, no 
tender thought; whereas he, my bonnie boy-” 



254 ^ House in Bloomsbury, 

“ Mem,” said Gilchrist, “ but if it was the 
voice of nature, it would be double strong in Miss 
Dora ; for there is no doubt that it was her mother : 
and with this one — oh, my dear leddy, you ken 
yoursel’-” 

Miss Bethune gave her faithful servant a look 
of flame, and going to the windows, drew up 
energetically the blinds, making the springs re¬ 
sound. Then she said in her most satirical tone: 
“ And what is it I ken myseh ? ” 

“ Oh, mem,” said Gilchrist, “ there’s a’ the evi¬ 
dence, first his ain story, and then the leddy’s that 
convinced ye for a moment; and then, what is 
most o’ a, the old gentleman, the writer, one of 
them that kens everything: of the father that died 
so many long years ago, and the baby before 
him.” 

Miss Bethune put up her hands to her ears, 
she stamped her foot upon the ground. “ How 
dare ye — how dare ye?” she cried. “Either 
man or woman that repeats that fool story to me 
is no friend of mine. My child, that I’ve felt in 
my heart growing up, and seen him boy and man! 
What’s that old man’s word — a stranger that 
knows nothing, that had even forgotten what he 
was put up to say — in comparison with what is in 
my heart? Is there such a thing as nature, or 
no’? Is a mother just like any other person, no 
better, rather worse ? Oh, woman ! — you that are 
a woman ! with no call to be rigid about your evi¬ 
dence like a man — what’s your evidence to me? 
I will just tell him when he comes back. ‘ My 
bonnie man,’ I will say, ‘ you have been driven 



A House in Bloomsbury. 255 

here and there in this world, and them that liked 
you best have failed you ; but here is the place 
where you belong, and here is a love that will 
never fail! ’ ” 

“ Oh, my dear leddy, my own mistress,” cried 
Gilchrist, “ think — think before you do that! He 
will ask ye for the evidence, if I am not to ask 
for it. He’s a fine, independent-spirited young 
gentleman, and he will just shake his head, and 
say he’ll lippen to nobody again. Oh, dinna 
deceive the young man! Ye might find out 
after-” 

“What, Gilchrist? Do you think I would 
change my mind about my own son, and abandon 
him, like this woman, at the last ? ” 

“ I never knew you forsake one that trusted 
in ye. I’m not saying that; but there might come 
one after all that had a better claim. There 
might appear one that even the like of me would 
believe in — that would have real evidence in his 
favour, that was no more to be doubted than if 
he had never been taken away out of your arms.” 

Miss Bethune turned round quick as lightning 
upon her maid, her eyes shining, her face full of 
sudden colour and light. “ God bless you, Gil¬ 
christ ! ” she cried, seizing the maid by her 
shoulders with a half embrace; “I see now 
you have never believed in that story— no more 
than me.” 

Poor Gilchrist could but gape with her mouth 
open at this unlooked-for turning of the tables. 
She had presented, without knowing it, the 
strongest argument of all. 



256 A House in Bloomsbury, 

After this, the patient, whom poor Harry had 
left to the happy influences of quiet and darkness, 
with all the blinds drawn up and the afternoon 
sunshine pouring in, went through an hour or two 
of restless occupation, her mind in the highest 
activity, her thoughts and her hands full. She 
promised finally to Gilchrist, not without a mental 
reservation in the case of special impulse or new 
light, not to disclose her conviction to Harry, but 
to wait for at least a day or two on events. But 
even this resolution did not suffice to reduce her 
to any condition of quiet, or make the rest which 
he had prescribed possible. She turned to a 
number of things which had been laid aside to be 
done one time or another; arrangement of new 
possessions and putting away of old, for which 
previously she had never found a fit occasion, and 
despatched them, scarcely allowing Gilchrist to 
help her, at lightning speed. 

Finally, she took out an old and heavy jewel- 
box, which had stood untouched in her bedroom 
for years; for, save an old brooch or two and 
some habitual rings which never left her fingers. 
Miss Bethune wore no ornaments. She took 
them into her sitting-room as the time approached 
when Harry might be expected back. It would 
give her a countenance, she thought; it would 
keep her from fixing her eyes on him while he 
spoke, and thus being assailed through all the 
armour of the heart at the same time. She could 
not look him in the face and see that likeness 
which Gilchrist, unconvincible, would not see, 
and yet remain silent. Turning over the old- 


257 


A House in Bloomsbury. 

fashioned jewels, telling him about them, to whom 
they had belonged, and all the traditions regard¬ 
ing them, would help her in that severe task of 
self-repression. She put the box on the table 
before her, and pulled out the trays. 

Nobody in Bloomsbury had seen these trea¬ 
sures before : the box had been kept carefully 
locked, disguised in an old brown cover, that no 
one might even guess how valuable it was. Miss 
Bethune was almost tempted to send for Dora to 
see the diamonds in their old-fashioned settings, 
and that pearl necklace which was still finer in its 
perfection of lustre and shape. To call Dora 
when there was anything to show was so natural, 
and it might make it easier for her to keep her 
own counsel ; but she reflected that in Dora’s 
presence the young man would not be m^ore than 
half hers, and forbore. 

Never in her life had those jewels given her 
so much pleasure. They had given her no 
pleasure, indeed. She had not been allowed to 
have them in that far-off stormy youth, which had 
been lightened by such a sweet, guilty gleam of 
happiness, and quenched in such misery of down¬ 
fall. When they came to her by inheritance, like 
all the rest, these beautiful things had made her 
heart sick. What could she do with them — a 
woman whose life no longer contained any possible 
festival, who had nobody coming after her, no heir 
to make heirlooms sweet ? She had locked the 
box, and almost thrown away the key, which, 
however, was a passionate suggestion repugnant 
to common sense, and resolved itself naturally 

17 


258 A House in Bloomsbury. 

into confiding the key to Gilchrist, in whose most 
secret repositories it had been kept, with an 
occasional furtive interval during which the maid 
had secretly visited and “ polished up ” the jewels, 
making sure that they were all right. Neither 
mistress nor maid was quite aware of their value, 
and both probably exaggerated it in their thoughts ; 
but some of the diamonds were fine, though all 
were very old-fashioned in arrangement, and the 
pearls were noted. Miss Bethune pulled out the 
trays, and the gems flashed and sparkled in a 
thousand colours in the slant of sunshine which 
poured in its last level ray through one window, 
just before the sun set — and made a dazzling 
show upon the table, almost blinding Janie, who 
came up with a message, and could not restrain 
a little shriek of wonder and admiration. The 
letter was one of trouble and appeal from poor 
Mrs. Hesketh, who and her husband were becom¬ 
ing more and more a burden on the shoulders of 
their friends. It asked for money, as usual, just 
a little money to go on with, as the shop in which 
they had been set up was not as yet producing 
much. The letter had been written with evident 
reluctance, and was marked with blots of tears. 
Miss Bethune’s mind was too much excited to 
consider calmly any such petition. Full herself 
of anticipation, of passionate hope, and visionary 
enthusiasm, which transported her above all com¬ 
mon things, how was she to refuse a poor woman’s 
appeal for the bare necessities of existence — a 
woman “ near her trouble,” with a useless husband, 
who was unworthy, yet whom the poor soul loved ? 


A House in Bloomsbury, 259 

She called Gilchrist, who generally carried the 
purse, to get something for the poor little pair. 

“ Is there anybody waiting?” she asked. 

“Oh ay, mem,” said Gilchrist, “there’s some¬ 
body waiting, —just him himsel’, the weirdless 
creature, that is good for nothing.” Gilchrist did 
not approve of all her mistress’s liberalities. “ I 
would not just be their milch cow to give them 
whatever they’re wanting,” she said. “ It’s awful 
bad for any person to just know where to run 
when they are in trouble.” 

“ Hold your peace! ” cried her mistress. 
“ Am I one to shut up my heart when the bless¬ 
ing of God has come to me ? ” 

“ Oh, mem ! ” cried Gilchrist, remonstrating, 
holding up her hands. 

But Miss Bethune stamped her foot, and the 
wiser woman yielded. 

She found Hesketh standing at the door of 
the sitting-room, when she went out to give him, 
very unwillingly, the money for his wife. “ The 
impident weirdless creature! He would have 
been in upon my leddy in another moment, press¬ 
ing to her very presence with his impident 
ways ! ” cried Gilchrist, hot and indignant. The 
faithful woman paused at the door as she came 
back, and looked at her mistress turning over and 
rearranging these treasures. “ And her sitting 
playing with her bonnie dies, in a rapture like a 
little bairn ! ” she said to herself, putting up her 
apron to her eyes. And then Gilchrist shook her 
head — shook it, growing quicker and quicker in 
the movement, as if she would have twisted it off. 


26o a House in Bloo 7 nsbury. 

But Miss Bethune was “ very composed ” when 
young Gordon came back. With an intense sense 
of the humour of the position, which mistress and 
maid communicated to each other with one glance 
of tacit co-operation, these two women comported ' 
themselves as if the behests of the young visitor 
who had taken the management of Miss Bethune’s 
acces des nerfs upon himself, had been carried 
out. She assumed, almost unconsciously, not¬ 
withstanding the twinkle in her eye, the languid 
aspect of a woman who has been resting after 
unusual excitement. All women, they say (as 
they say so many foolish things), are actors; all 
women, at all events, let us allow, learn as the 
A B C of their training the art of taking up a role 
assigned to them, and fulfilling the necessities of a 
position. “You will see what Tm reduced to by 
what I’m doing,” she said. “ As if there was 
nothing of more importance in life, I am just 
playing myself with my toys, like Dora, or any 
other little thing.” 

“ So much the best thing you could do,” said 
young Harry; and he was eager and delighted 
to look through the contents of the box with her. 

He was far better acquainted with their value 
than she was, and while she told him the family 
associations connected with each ornament, he 
discussed very learnedly what they were, and dis¬ 
tinguished the old-fashioned rose diamonds which 
were amongst those of greater value, with a know¬ 
ledge that seemed to her extraordinary. They 
spent, in fact, an hour easily and happily over that 
box, quite relieved from graver considerations by 


A House in Bloomsbury. 261 

the interposition of a new thing, in which there were 
no deep secrets of the heart or commotions of being 
involved: and thus were brought down into the 
ordinary from the high and troublous level of feel¬ 
ing and excitement on which they had been. To 
Miss Bethune the little episode was one of child’s 
play in the midst of the most serious questions of 
the world. Had she thought it possible beforehand 
that such an interval could have been, she would, 
in all likelihood, have scorned herself for the dere¬ 
liction, and almost scorned the young man for being 
able to forget at once his sorrow and the gravity 
of his circumstances at sight of anything so trifling 
as a collection of trinkets. But in -reality this 
interlude was balm to them both. It revealed to 
Miss Bethune a possibility of ordinary life and 
intercourse, made sweet by understanding and 
affection, which was a revelation to her repressed 
and passionate spirit; and it soothed the youth 
with that renewing of fresh interests, reviving and 
succeeding the old, which gives elasticity to the 
mind, and courage to face the world anew. They 
did not know how long they had been occupied 
over the jewels, when the hour of dinner came 
round again, and Gilchrist appeared with her pre¬ 
parations, still further increasing that sense of 
peaceful life renewed, and the order of common 
things begun again. It was only after this meal 
was over, the jewels being all restored to their 
places, and the box to its old brown cover in Miss 
Bethune’s bedroom, that the discussion of the 
graver question was resumed. 

“There is one thing,” Miss Bethune said, 


262 A House in Bloomsbury. 

“ that, however proud you may be, you must let 
me say: and that is, that everything having 
turned out so different to your thoughts, and you 
left—you will not be offended ?—astray, as it were, 
in this big unfriendly place-” 

“ I cannot call it unfriendly,” said young 
Gordon. “ If other people find it so, it is not my 
experience. I have found you.” He looked up 
at her with a half laugh, with moisture in his 
eyes. 

“Ay,” she said, with emphasis, “you have 
found me — you say well — found me when you 
were not looking for me. I accept the word as a 
good omen. And after that ? ” 

If only she would not have abashed him from 
time to time with those dark sayings, which 
seemed to mean something to which he had no 
clue! He felt himself brought suddenly to a 
standstill in his grateful effusion of feeling, and 
put up his hand to arrest her in what she was 
evidently going on to say. 

“Apart from that,” he said hurriedly, “I am 
not penniless. I have not been altogether 
dependent; at least, the form of my dependence 
has been the easiest one. I have had my 
allowance from my guardian ever since I came to 
man’s estate. It was my own, though, of course, 
of his giving. And I am not an extravagant 
fellow. It was not as if I wanted money for to¬ 
morrow’s living, for daily bread.” He coloured 
as he spoke, with the half pride, half shame, of 
discussing such a subject. “ I think,” he said, 
throwing off that flush with a shake of his head. 



A House in Bloomsbury. 263 

“ that I have enough to take me back to South 
America, and there, I told you, I have friends. I 
don’t think I can fail to find work there.” 

“ But under such different circumstances! 
Have you considered ? A poor clerk where you 
were one of the fine gentlemen of the place. Such 
a change of position is easier where you are not 
known.” 

He grew red again, with a more painful 
colour. “ I don’t think so,” he said quickly. “ I 
don’t believe that my old friends would cast me 
off because, instead of being a useless fellow about 
town, I was a poor clerk.” 

“ Maybe you are right,” said Miss Bethune 
very gravely. “ I am not one that thinks so ill 
of human nature. They would not cast you off. 
But you, working hard all day, wearied at night, 
with no house to entertain them in that enter¬ 
tained you, would it not be you that would cast 
off them ? ” 

He looked at her, startled, for a moment. 
“ Do you think,” he cried, “ that poverty makes 
a man mean like that?” And then he added 
slowly: “ It is possible, perhaps, that it might be 
so.” Then he brightened up again, and looked 
her full in the face. “ But then there would be 
nobody to blame for that, it would be simply my 
own fault.” 

“ God bless you, laddie! ” cried Miss Bethune 
quite irrelevantly ; and then she too paused. “If 
it should happen so that there was a place pro¬ 
vided for you at home. No, no, not what you 
call dependence — far from it, hard work. I know 


264 A House in Bloomsbury. 

one — a lady that has property in the North — 
property that has not been well managed — that 
has given her more trouble than it is worth. But 
there’s much to be made of it, if she had a man 
who would give his mind to it as if — as if it were 
his own.” 

“But I,” he said, “know nothing about the 
North. I would not know how to manage. I 
told you I had no education. And would this 
lady have me, trust me, put that in my hands, 
without knowing, without-” 

“ She would trust you,” said Miss Bethune, 
clasping her hands together firmly, and looking 
him in the face, in a rigid position which showed 
how little steady she was — “ she would trust you, 
for life and death, on my word.” 

His eyes fell before that unfathomable concen¬ 
tration of hers. “ And you would trust me like 
that — knowing so little, so little ? And how can 
you tell even that I am honest — even that I am 
true ? That there’s nothing behind, no weakness, 
no failure ? ” 

“ Don’t speak to me,” she said harshly. “ I 
know.” 



CHAPTER XXII. 


The evening passed, however, without any further 
revelations. Miss Bethune explained to the young 
man, with all the lucidity of a man of business, 
the situation and requirements of that “ property 
in the North,” which would give returns, she be¬ 
lieved, of various kinds, not always calculated in 
balance sheets, if it was looked after by a man 
who would deal with it “as if it were his own.” 
The return would be something in money and 
rents, but much more in human comfort and hap¬ 
piness. She had never had the courage to tackle 
that problem, she said, and the place had been 
terrible to her, full of associations which would 
be thought of no more if he were there. The 
result was, that young Gordon went away thought¬ 
ful, somewhat touched by the feeling with which 
Miss Bethune had spoken of her poor crofters, 
somewhat roused by the thought of “ the North,” 
that vague and unknown country which was the 
country of his fathers, the land of brown heath and 
shaggy wood, the country of Scott, which is, after 
all, distinction enough for any well-conditioned 
stranger. Should he try that strange new open¬ 
ing of life suddenly put before him ? The un¬ 
known of itself has a charm — 

If the pass were dangerous known. 

The danger’s self were lure alone. 

(265) 


266 A House in Bloomsbury. 

He went back to his hotel with at least a new 
project fully occupying all his thoughts. 

On the next evening, in the dusk of the 
summer night, Miss Bethune was in her bed¬ 
chamber alone. She had no light, though she 
was a lover of the light, and had drawn up the 
blinds as soon as the young physician who pre¬ 
scribed a darkened room had disappeared. She 
had a habit of watching out the last departing 
rays of daylight, and loved to sit in the gloaming, 
as she called it, reposing from all the cares of the 
day in that meditative moment. It was a bad 
sign of Miss Bethune’s state of mind when she 
called early for her lamp. She was seated thus 
in the dark, when young Gordon came in audibly 
to the sitting-room, introduced by Gilchrist, who 
told him her mistress would be with him directly; 
but, knowing Miss Bethune would hear what she 
said, did not come to call her. The lamps were 
lighted in that room, and showed a little outline 
of light through the chinks of the door. She 
smiled to herself in the dark, with a beatitude 
that ought to have lighted it up, as she listened 
to the big movements of the young man in the 
lighted room next door. He had seated himself 
under Gilchrist’s ministrations ; but when she 
went away he got up and moved about, looking, 
as Miss Bethune divined, at the pictures on the 
walls and the books and little silver toys on the 
tables. 

He made more noise, she thought to herself 
proudly, than a woman does: filled the space 
more, seemed to occupy and fill out everything. 


A House m Bloomsbury, 267 

Her countenance and her heart expanded in the 
dark ; she would have liked to peep at him through 
the crevice of light round the door, or even the 
keyhole, to see him when he did not know she 
was looking, to read the secrets of his heart in his 
face. There were none there, she said to herself 
with an effusion of happiness which brought the 
tears to her eyes, none there which a mother should 
be afraid to discover. The luxury of sitting there, 
holding her breath, hearing him move, knowing 
him so near, was so sweet and so great, that she 
sat, too blessed to move, taking all the good out of 
that happy moment before it should fleet away. 

Suddenly, however, there came a dead silence. 
Had he sat down again ? Had he gone out on 
the balcony ? What had become of him ? She 
sat breathless, wondering, listening for the next 
sound. Surely he had stepped outside the window 
to look out upon the Bloomsbury street, and the 
waving of the trees in the Square, and the stars 
shining overhead. Not a sound — yet, yes, there 
was something. What was it ? A faint, stealthy 
rustling, not to be called a sound at all, rather 
some stealthy movement to annihilate sound — 
the strangest contrast to the light firm step that 
had come into the room, and the free movements 
which she had felt to be bigger than a woman’s. 

Miss Bethune in the dark held her breath ; 
fear seized possession of her, she knew not why ; 
her heart sank, she knew not why. Oh, his father 
— his father was not a good man ! 

The rustling continued, very faint; it might 
have been a small animal rubbing against the 


268 A House in Bloomsbury. 

door. She sat bolt upright in her chair, motion¬ 
less, silent as a waxen image, listening. If 
perhaps, after all, it should be only one of the little 
girls, or even the cat rubbing against the wall 
idly on the way downstairs ! A troubled smile 
came over her face, her heart gave a throb of 
relief. But then the sound changed, and Miss 
Bethune’s face again grew rigid, her heart stood 
still. 

Some one was trying very cautiously, without 
noise, to open the door; to turn the handle with¬ 
out making any sound required some time; it 
creaked a little, and then there was silence — guilty 
silence, the pause of stealth alarmed by the faintest 
noise ; then it began again. Slowly, slowly the 
handle turned round, the door opened, a hair’s 
breadth at a time. O Lord above! his father — 
his father was an ill man. 

There was some one with her in the room — 
some one unseen, as she was, swallowed up in 
the darkness, veiled by the curtains at the 
windows, which showed faintly a pale streak of 
sky only, letting in no light. Unseen, but not 
inaudible ; a hurried, fluttering breath betraying 
him, and that faint sound of cautious, uneasy 
movement, now and then instantly, guiltily 
silenced, and then resumed. She could feel the 
stealthy step thrill the flooring, making a jar, 
which was followed by one of those complete 
silences in which the intruder too held his breath, 
then another stealthy step. 

A thousand thoughts, a very avalanche, pre¬ 
cipitated themselves through her mind. A man 


A House iu Bloomsbury, 269 

did not steal into a dark room like that if he were 
doing it for the first time. And his words last 
night, “ How do you know even that I am honest? ” 
And then his father — his father — oh, God help 
him, God forgive him! — that was an ill man! 
And his upbringing in a country where lies were 
common, with a guardian that did him no justice, 
and the woman that cut him off. And not to 
know that he had a creature belonging to him in 
the world to be made glad or sorry whatever 
happened ! Oh, God forgive him, God help him! 
the unfortunate, the miserable boy! “Mine all 
the same—mine all the same!” her heart said, 
bleeding — oh, that was no metaphor! bleeding 
with the anguish, the awful, immeasurable blow. 

If there was any light at all in the room, it 
was a faint greyness, just showing in the midst of 
the dark the vague form of a little table against 
the wall, and a box in a brown cover — a box — no, 
no, the shape of a box, but only something stand¬ 
ing there, something, the accursed thing for which 
life and love were to be wrecked once more. Oh, 
his father — his father ! But his father would not 
have done that. Yet it was honester to take the 
trinkets, the miserable stones that would bring in 
money, than to wring a woman’s heart. And 
what did the boy know? He had never been 
taught, never had any example, God help him, 
God forgive him ! and mine — mine all the time ! 

Then out of the complete darkness came into 
that faint grey where the box was, an arm, a hand. 
It touched, not calculating the distance, the solid 
substance with a faint jar, and retired like a ghost, 


270 A House ill Bloomsbury. 

while she sat rigid, looking on; then more 
cautiously, more slowly still, it stole forth again, 
and grasped the box. Miss Bethune had settled 
nothing what to do, she had thought of nothing 
but the misery of it, she had intended, so far as 
she had any intention, to watch while the tragedy 
was played out, the dreadful act accomplished. 
But she was a woman of sudden impulses, moved 
by flashes of resolution almost independent of her 
will. 

Suddenly, more ghostlike still than the arm of 
the thief, she made a swift movement forward, 
and put her hand upon his. Her grasp seemed 
to crush through the quivering clammy fingers, 
and she felt under her own the leap of the pulses; 
but the criminal was prepared for every emer¬ 
gency, and uttered no cry. She felt the quick 
noiseless change of attitude, and then the free 
arm swing to strike her — heaven and earth ! to 
strike her, a woman twice his age, to strike her, 

his friend, his- She was a strong woman, in 

the fulness of health and courage. As quick as 
lightning, she seized the arm as it descended, and 
held him as in a grip of iron. Was it guilt that 
made him like a child in her hold? He had a 
stick in his hand, shortened, with a heavy head, 
ready to deal a blow. Oh, the coward, the 
wretched coward! She held him panting for a 
moment, unable to say a word; and then she 
called out with a voice that was no voice, but a 
kind of roar of misery, for “ Gilchrist, Gilchrist! ” 

Gilchrist, who was never far off, who always 
had her ear open for her mistress, heard, and 



A House in Bloomsbury. 271 

came flying from up or down stairs with her 
candle: and some one else heard it, who was 
standing pensive on the balcony, looking out, and 
wondering what fate had now in store for him, 
and mingling his thoughts with the waving of 
the trees and the nameless noises of the street. 
Which of them arrived first was never known, he 
from the other room throwing wide the door of 
communication, or she from the stairs with the 
impish, malicious light of that candle throwing in 
its sudden illumination as with a pleasure in the 
deed. 

The spectators were startled beyond measure 
to see the lady in apparent conflict with a man, 
but they had no time to make any remarks. The 
moment the light flashed upon her. Miss Bethune 
gave a great cry. “ It’s you, ye vermin ! ” she 
cried, flinging the furtive creature in her grasp 
from her against the wall, which half stunned him 
for the moment. And then she stood for a 
moment, her head bent back, her face without a 
trace of colour, confronting the eager figure in 
the doorway, surrounded by the glow of the light, 
flying forward to help her. 

“O God, forgive me!” she cried, “God, 
forgive me, for I am an ill woman: but I will 
never forgive myself! ” 

The man who lay against the wall, having 
dropped there on the floor with the vehemence 
of her action, perhaps exaggerating the force that 
had been used against him, to excite pity — for 
Gilchrist, no mean opponent, held one door, and 
that unexpected dreadful apparition of the young 


272 A House in Bloomsbury. 

man out of the lighted room bearing down upon 
him, filled the other — was Alfred Hesketh, white, 
miserable, and cowardly, huddled up in a wretched 
heap, with furtive eyes gleaming, and the heavy- 
headed stick furtively grasped, still ready to deal 
an unexpected blow, had he the opportunity, 
though he was at the same time rubbing the wrist 
that held it, as if in pain. 

Young Gordon had made a hurried step 
towards him, when Miss Bethune put out her 
hand. She had dropped into a chair, where she 
sat panting for breath. 

“Wait,” she said, “ wait till I can speak.” 

“You brute!” cried Harry; “how dare you 
come in here ? What have you done to frighten 
the lady ? ” 

He was interrupted by a strange chuckle of a 
laugh from Miss Bethune’s panting throat. 

“ It’s rather me, I’m thinking, that’s frightened 
him,” she said. “Ye wretched vermin of a crea¬ 
ture, how did ye know ? What told ye in your 
meeserable mind that there was something here 
to steal ? And ye would have struck me — me 
that am dealing out to ye your daily bread 1 No, 
my dear, you’re not to touch him ; don’t lay a 
finger on him. The Lord be thanked — though 
God forgive me for thanking Him for the wicked¬ 
ness of any man ! ” 

How enigmatical this all was to Harry Gor¬ 
don, and how little he could imagine any clue 
to the mystery, it is needless to say. Gilchrist 
herself thought her mistress was temporarily out 
of her mind. She was quicker, however, to 


A House in Bloomsbury. 273 

realise what had happened than the young man, 
who did not think of the jewels, nor remember 
anything about them. Gilchrist looked with 
anxiety at her lady’s white face and gleaming 
eyes. 

“ Take her into the parlour, Master Harry,” 
she said : “ she’s just done out. And I’ll send for 
the police.” 

“ You’ll do nothing of the kind, Gilchrist,” 
said Miss Bethune. “ Get up, ye creature. 
You’re not worth either man’s or woman’s while ; 
you have no more fusion than a cat. Get up, 
and begone, ye poor, weak, wretched, cowardly 
vermin, for that’s what ye are: and I thank the 
Lord with all my heart that it was only you ! 
Gilchrist, stand away from the door, and let the 
creature go.” 

He rose, dragging himself up by degrees, 
with a furtive look at Gordon, who, indeed, looked 
a still less easy opponent than Miss Bethune. 

“ I take that gentleman to witness,” he said, 
“ as there’s no evidence against me but just a 
lady’s fancy: and I’ve been treated very bad, and 
my wrist broken, for aught I know, and bruised 
all over, and I-” 

Miss Bethune stamped her foot on the floor. 
“ Begone, ye born liar and robber! ” she said. 
“ Gilchrist will see ye off the premises; and 
mind, you never come within my sight again. 
Now, Mr. Harry, as she calls ye. I’ll go into the 
parlour, as she says; and the Lord, that only 
knows the wickedness that has been in my mind, 
forgive me this night! and it would be a comfort 
18 



2 74 ^ House in Bloomsbury. 

to my heart, my bonnie man, if you would say 
Amen.” 

“Amen with all my heart,” said the young 
man, with a smile, “ but, so far as I can make 
out, your wickedness is to be far too good and 
forgiving. What did the fellow do ? I confess I 
should not like to be called a vermin, as you 
called him freely — but if he came with intent to 
steal, he should have been handed over to the 
police, indeed he should.” 

“ I am more worthy of the police than him, 
if ye but knew: but, heaven be praised, you’ll 
never know. I mind now, he came with a 
message when I was playing with these wretched 
diamonds, like an old fool: and he must have 
seen or scented them with the creeminal instinct 
Dr. Roland speaks about.” 

She drew a long breath, for she had not yet 
recovered from the panting of excitement, and 
then told her story, the rustling without, the 
opening of the door, the hand extended to the 
box. When she had told all this with much 
vividness. Miss Bethune suddenly stopped, drew 
another long breath, and dropped back upon the 
sofa where she was sitting. It was not her way ; 
the lights had been dazzling and confusing her 
ever since they blazed upon her by the opening 
of the two doors, and the overwhelming horror, 
and blessed but tremendous revulsion of feeling, 
which had passed in succession over her, had 
been more than her strength, already undermined 
by excitement, could bear. Her breath, her 
consciousness, her life, seemed to ebb away in a 


A House hi Bloomsbury. 275 

moment, leaving only a pale shadow of her, fallen 
back upon the cushions. 

Once more Harry was the master of the situa¬ 
tion. He had seen a woman faint before, which 
was almost more than Gilchrist, with all her ex¬ 
perience, had done, and he had the usual remedies 
at his fingers’ ends. But this was not like the 
usual easy faints, over in a minute, to which young 
Gordon had been accustomed, and Dr. Roland 
had to be summoned from below, and a thrill of 
alarm had run through the house, Mrs. Simcox 
herself coming up from the kitchen, with strong 
salts and feathers to burn, before Miss Bethune 
came to herself. The house was frightened, and 
so at last was the experienced Harry; but Dr. 
Roland’s interest and excitement may be said to 
have been pleasurable. “ I have always thought 
this was what was likely. I’ve been prepared for 
it,” he said to himself, as he hovered round the 
sofa. It would be wrong to suppose that he 
lengthened, or at least did nothing to shorten, this 
faint for his own base purposes, that he might the 
better make out certain signs which he thought 
he had recognised. But the fact was, that not 
only Dora had come from abovestairs, but even 
Mr. Mannering had dragged himself down, on 
the alarm that Miss Bethune was dead or dying; 
and that the whole household had gathered in her 
room, or on the landing outside ; while she lay, 
in complicity (or not) with the doctor, in that long- 
continued swoon, which the spectators afterwards 
said lasted an hour, or two, or even three hours, 
according to their temperaments. 


276 A House m Bloomsbury, 

When she came to herself at last, the scene 
upon which she opened her eyes was one which 
helped her recovery greatly, by filling her with 
wrath and indignation. She lay in the middle of 
her room, in a strong draught, the night air 
blowing from window to window across her, the 
lamp even under its shade, much more the candles 
on the mantelpiece, blown about, and throwing a 
wavering glare upon the agitated group, Gilchrist 
in the foreground with her apron at her eyes, and 
behind her Dora, red with restrained emotions, 
and Janie and Molly crying freely, while Mrs. 
Simcox brandished a bunch of fuming feathers, 
and Mr. Mannering peered over the landlady’s 
head with his “ pince-nez ” insecurely balanced on 
his nose, and his legs trembling under him in 
a harmony of unsteadiness, but anxiety. Miss 
Bethune’s wrist was in the grasp of the doctor; 
and Harry stood behind with a fan, which, in the 
strong wind blowing across her from window to 
window, struck the patient as ludicrously un¬ 
necessary. “What is all this fuss about?” she 
cried, trying to raise herself up. 

“ There’s no fuss, my dear lady,” said the 
doctor; “ but you must keep perfectly quiet.” 

“ Oh, you’re there, Dr. Roland ? Then there’s 
one sane person. But, for goodness’ sake, make 
Mr. Mannering sit down, and send all these idiots 
away. What’s the matter with me, that I’ve to 
get my death of cold, and be murdered with that 
awful smell, and even Harry Gordon behaving 
like a fool, making an air with a fan, when there’s 
a gale blowing ? Go away, go away.” 


4 House in Bloomsbury. 277 

“You see that our friend has come to herself/’ 
said the doctor. “ Shut that window, somebody, 
the Other will be enough ; and, my dear woman, 
for the sake of all that’s good, take those horrid 
feathers away.” 

“ I am murdered with the smell ! ” cried Miss 
Bethune, placing her hands over her face. “ But 
make Mr. Mannering sit down, he’s not fit to 
stand after his illness; and Harry, boy, sit down, 
too, and don’t drive me out of, my senses. Go 
away, go all of you away.” 

The last to be got rid of was Dr. Roland, who 
assured everybody that the patient was now quite 
well, but languid. “ You want to get rid of me 
too, I know,” he said, “and I’m going; but I 
should like to see you in bed first.” 

“You shall not see me in bed, nor no other 
man,” said Miss Bethune. “ I will go to bed when 
I am disposed, doctor. I’m not your patient, 
mind, at all events, now.” 

“ You were half an hour since : but I’m not 
going to pretend to any authority,” said the doctor. 
“ I hope I know better. Don’t agitate yourself 
any more, if you’ll be guided by me. You have 
been screwing up that heart of yours far too tight.” 

“ How do you know,” she said, “ that I have 
got a heart at all ? ” 

“ Probably not from the sentimental point of 
view,” he replied, with a little fling of sarcasm : 
“but I know you couldn’t live without the physical 
organ, and it’s over-strained. Good-night, since 
I see you want to get rid of me. But I’ll be 
handy downstairs, and mind you come for me. 


278 A House ill Bloomsbury. 

Gilchrist, on the moment if she should show any 
signs again.” 

This was said to Gilchrist in an undertone as 
the doctor went away. 

Miss Bethune sat up on her sofa, still very 
pale, still with a singing in her ears, and the glitter 
of fever in her eyes. “You are not to go away, 
Harry,” she said. “ I have something to tell you 
before you go.” 

“ Oh, mem,” said Gilchrist, “ for any sake, not 
to-night.” “ 

“ Go away, and bide away till I send for you,” 
cried the mistress. “ And, Harry, sit you down 
here by me. I am going to tell you a story. 
This night has taught me many things. I might 
die, or I might be murdered for the sake of a few 
gewgaws that are nothing to me, and go down to 
my grave with a burden on my heart. I want to 
speak before I die.” 

“Not to-night,” he cried. “You are in no 
danger. Fll sleep here on the sofa by way of 
guard, and to-morrow you will send them to your 
bankers. Don’t tire yourself any more to-night.” 

“You are like all the rest, and understand 
nothing about it,” she cried impatiently. “It is 
just precisely now that I will speak, and no other 
time. Harry, I am going to tell you a story. 
It is like most women’s stories — about a young 
creature that was beguiled and loved a man. He 
was a man that had a fine outside, and looked as 
good as he was bonnie, or at least this misfortu- 
nate thing thought so. He had nothing, and she 
had nothing. But she was the last of her family. 


A House in Bloomsbury. 279 

and would come into a good fortune if she pleased 
her uncle that was the head of the name. But 
the uncle could not abide this man. Are you 
listening to me ? Mind, it is a story, but not an 
idle story, and every word tells. Well, she was 
sent away to a lonely country place, an old 
house, with two old servants in it, to keep 
her free of the man. But the man followed ; 
and in that solitude who was to hinder them 
seeing each other ? They did for a while 
every day. And then the two married each 
other, as two can do in Scotland that make up 
their minds to risk it, and were living together in 
secret in the depths of the Highlands, as I told 
you, nobody knowing but the old servants that 
had been far fonder of her father than of the uncle 
that was head of the house, and were faithful to 
her in life and death. And then there came 
terrible news that the master was coming back. 
That poor young woman — oh, she was a fool, and 
I do not defend her! — had just been delivered in 
secret, in trouble and misery — for she dared not 
seek help or nursing but what she got at home — 
of a bonnie bairn,” — she put out her hand and 
grasped him by the arm, — “a boy, a darling, 
though she had him but for two or three days. 
Think if you can what that was. The master 
coming that had, so to speak, the power of life 
and death in his hands, and the young, subdued 
girl that he had put there to be in safety, the 

mother of a son-” Miss Bethune drew a long 

breath. She silenced the remonstrance on the 
lips of her hearer by a gesture, and went on : — 



28 o a House in Bloomsbtcry. 

“ It was the man, her husband, that she thought 
loved her, that brought the news. He said every¬ 
thing was lost if it should be known. He bid her 
to be brave and put a good face upon it, for his 
sake and the boy’s. Keep her fortune and cling 
to her inheritance she must, whatever happened, 
for their sake. And while she was dazed in her 
weakness, and could not tell what to think, he 
took the baby out of her arms, and carried him 
away. * 

“ Harry Gordon, that’s five and twenty years 
ago, and man or bairn I have never seen since, 
though I did that for them. I dreed my weird 
for ten long years—ten years of mortal trouble — 
and never said a word, and nobody knew. Then 
my uncle died, and the money, the terrible money, 
bought with my life’s blood, became mine. And 
I looked for him then to come back. But he 
never came back nor word nor sign of him. And 
my son — the father, I had discovered what he 
was, I wanted never to hear his name again — but 
my son— Harry Gordon, that’s you ! They may 
say what they will, but I know better. Who 
should know, if not the mother who bore you ? 
My heart went out to you when I saw you first, 
and yours to me. You’ll not tell me that your 
heart did not speak for your mother? It is you, 
my darling, it is you ! ” 

He had staggered to his feet, pale, trembling, 
and awe-stricken. The sight of her emotion, the 
pity of her story, the revolt and resistance in his 
own heart were too much for him. “I!” he 
cried. 


CHAPTER XXIIL 


Harry Gordon passed the night upon the sofa 
in Miss Bethune’s sitting-room. It was his opin¬ 
ion that her nerves were so shaken and her mind 
so agitated that the consciousness of having some 
one at hand within call, in case of anything hap¬ 
pening, was of the utmost consequence. I don’t 
know that any one else in the house entertained 
these sentiments, but it was an idea in which he 
could not be shaken, his experience all tending in 
that way. 

As a matter of fact, his nerves were scarcely 
less shaken than he imagined hers to be. His 
mother! Was that his mother who called good¬ 
night to him from the next room ? who held that 
amusing colloquy with the doctor through the 
closed door, defying all interference, and bidding 
Dr. Roland look after his patient upstairs, and 
leave her in peace with Gilchrist, who was better 
than any doctor? Was that his mother? His 
heart beat with a strange confusion, but made no 
answer. And his thoughts went over all the 
details with an involuntary scepticism. No, there 
was no voice of nature, as she had fondly hoped ; 
nothing but the merest response to kind words 
and a kind look had drawn him towards this old 
Scotch maiden lady, who he had thought, with a 
smile, reminded him of something in Scott, and 
(281) 


282 


A House in Bloomsbury. 


therefore had an attraction such as belongs to 
those whom we may have known in some previous 
state of being. 

What a strange fate was his, to be drawn into 
one circle after another, one family after another, 
to which he had no right! And how was he to 
convince this lady, who was so determined in her 
own way of thinking, that he had no right, no 
title, to consider himself her son ? But had he 
indeed no title ? Was she likely to make such a 
statement without proof that it was true, without 
evidence ? He thought of her with a kind of 
amused but by no means disrespectful admiration, 
as she had stood flinging from her the miserable 
would-be thief, the wretched, furtive creature who 
was no match fora resolute and dauntless woman. 
All the women Harry had ever known would 
have screamed or fled or fainted at sight of a live 
burglar in their very bed-chamber. She flung him 
off like a fly, like a reptile. That was not a weak 
woman, liable to be deceived by any fancy. She 
had the look in her eyes of a human creature afraid 
of nothing, ready to confront any danger. And 
could she then be so easily deceived ? Or was it 
true, actually true ? Was he the son — not of a 
woman whom it might be shame to discover, as 
he had always feared — but of a spotless mother, a 
person of note, with an established position and 
secure fortune ? The land which he was to 
manage, which she had roused him almost to 
enthusiasm about, by her talk of crofters and 
cotters to be helped forward, and human service 
to be done — v/as that land his own, coming to him 


A House hi Bloomsbury, 283 

by right, his natural place and inheritance ? Was 
he no waif and stray, no vague atom in the world 
drifting hither and thither, but a man with an 
assured position, a certain home, a place in society ? 
How different from going back to South America, 
and at the best becoming a laborious clerk where 
he had been the young master! But he could 
not believe in it. 

He lay there silent through the short summer 
night, moving with precaution upon the uneasy 
couch, which was too short and too small, but 
where the good fellow would have passed the 
night waking and dosing for anybody’s comfort, 
even were it only an old woman’s who had been 
kind to him. But was she his mother — his 
mother ? He could not believe it — he could not, 
he could not! Her wonderful speeches and looks 
were all explained now, and went to his heart: 
but they did not convince him, or bring any 
enlightenment into his. Was she the victim of 
an illusion, poor lady, self-deceived altogether ? 
Or was there something in it, or was there nothing 
in it ? He thought of his father, and his heart 
revolted. His poor father, whom he remembered 
with the halo round him of childish affection, but 
whom he had learned to see through other people’s 
eyes, not a strong man, not good for very much, 
but yet not one to desert a woman who trusted 
in him. But of the young man’s thoughts through 
that long uneasy night there was no end. He 
heard whisperings and movements in the next 
room, subdued for his sake as he subdued his 
inclination to turn and toss upon his sofa for 


284 A House in Bloomsbury, 

hers, during half the night. And then when the 
daylight came bright into the room through the 
bars of the Venetian blind there came silence, just 
when he had fully woke up to the consciousness 
that life had begun again in a new world. A 
little later, Gilchrist stole into his room, bringing 
him a cup of tea. “ You must come upstairs now ; 
there’s a room where ye will get some sleep. 
She’s sound now, and it’s broad daylight, and no 
fear of any disturbance,” she said, 

“ I want no more sleep. I’ll go and get a 
bath, and be ready for whatever is wanted.” He 
caught her apron as she was turning away, that 
apron on which so many hems had been folded. 
“ Don’t go away,” he said. “ Speak to me, tell 
me, Gilchrist, for heaven’s sake, is this true ? ” 

“ The Lord knows! ” cried Gilchrist, shaking 
her head and clasping her hands; “ but oh, my 
young gentleman, dinna ask me ! ” 

“Whom can I ask?” he said. “Surely, 
surely you, that have been always with her, can 
throw some light upon it. Is it true ? ” 

“ It is true — true as death,” said the woman, 
“ that all that happened to my dear leddy ; but 
oh, if you are the bairn, the Lord knows; he was 
but two days old, and he would have been about 
your age. I can say not a word, but only the 
Lord knows. And there’s nothing—nothing, 
though she thinks sae, that speaks in your 
heart ? ” 

He shook his head, with a faint smile upon 
his face. 

“ Oh, dinna laugh, dinna laugh. I canna bear 


A House in Bloomsbury. 285 

it, Mr. Harry ; true or no’ true, it’s woven in with 
every fibre o’ her heart. You have nae parents, 
my bonnie man. Oh, could you no’ take it upon 
ye, true or no’ true ? There’s naebody I can hear 
of that it would harm or wrong if you were to 
accept it. And there’s naebody kens but me how 
good she is. Her exterior is maybe no’ sae 
smooth as many ; but her heart it is gold — oh, her 
heart it is gold! For God’s sake, who is the 
Father of all of us, and full of mercy — such peety 
as a father hath unto his children dear — oh, my 
young man, let her believe it, take her at her 
word ! You will make her a happy woman at 
the end of a’ her trouble, and it will do ye nae 
harm.” 

“ Not if it is a fiction all the time,” he said, 
shaking his head. 

“ Who is to prove it’s a fiction ? He would 
have been your age. She thinks you have your 
grandfather’s een. I’m no’ sure now I look at 
you but she’s right. She’s far more likely to be 
right than me : and now I look at you well I think 
I can see it. Oh, Mr. Harry, what harm would 
it do you ? A good home and a good inheritance, 
and to make her happy. Is that no’ worth while, 
even if maybe it were not what you would think 
perfidy true ? ” 

“It can’t be half true, Gilchrist; it must be 
whole or nothing.” 

“Weel, then, it’s whole true; and I’ll gang 
to the stake for it. Is she not the one that should 
know ? And if you were to cast her off the morn 
and break her heart, she would still believe it till 


286 


A House in Bloomsbury, 


her dying day. Turn round your head and let me 
look at you again. Oh, laddie, if I were to gang 
to the stake for it, you have — you have your 
grandfather’s een I ” 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

The house in Bloomsbury was profoundly agi¬ 
tated by all these discoveries. Curiously enough, 
and against all the previsions of his friends, Mr. 
Mannering had not been thrown back by the 
excitement. The sharp sting of these events 
which had brought back before him once more 
the tragic climax of his life — the time when he 
had come back as out of the grave and found his 
home desolate — when his wife had fled before his 
face, not daring to meet his eye, although she 
had not knowingly sinned against him, and when 
all the triumph of his return to life, and of his 
discoveries and the fruit of his dreadful labours, 
had become bitterness to him and misery — came 
back upon him, every incident standing out as if 
it had been yesterday. He had fallen into the 
dead calm of failure, he had dropped his tools 
from his hands, and all his ambition from his 
heart. He had retired — he who had reappeared 
in existence after all his sufferings, with the con¬ 
sciousness that now the ball was at his foot, and 
fame if not fortune secured — into the second 
desert, more impenetrable than any African 
forest, of these rooms in Bloomsbury, and vege¬ 
tated there all these years, forgetting more or less 
all that had happened to him, and all that might 
have happened to him, and desiring only to linger 
(287) 


288 A House in Bloomsbury. 

out the last of his life unknowing and unknown. 
And now into his calm there had come back, 
clear as yesterday, all that terrible climax, every 
detail of his own tragedy. 

It ought to have killed him: that would have 
seemed the most likely event in his weakness, 
after his long illness; and perhaps, — who could 
say ? — the best thing that could have happened, in 
face of the new circumstances, which he could not 
accept and had no right to refuse. But no, it did 
not kill him. It acted upon him as great trouble 
acts on some minds, like a strong stimulant. It 
stung him back into life, it seemed to transfuse 
something, some new revivifying principle, into 
his veins. He had wanted, perhaps, something to 
disperse the mists of illness and physical dejection. 
He found it not in soothing influences or pleasure, 
but in pain. From the day when he stumbled 
downstairs to Miss Bethune’s room on the dread¬ 
ful report that she was dying, he began at once to 
resume his usual habits, and with almost more 
than his usual strength. Was it possible that 
Death, that healer of all wounds, that peacemaker 
in all tumults, had restored a rest that was wanting 
to the man’s secret heart, never disclosed to any 
ear? She was dead, the woman who unwittingly, 
without meaning it, had made of his life the silent 
tragedy it had been. That she was guiltless, and 
that the catastrophe was all a terrible mistake, had 
made it worse instead of better. He had thought 
often that had she erred in passion, had she been 
carried away from him by some strong gale of 
personal feeling, it would have been more bear- 


A House m Bloomsbury. 289 

able : but the cruel fatality, the network of accident 
which had made his life desolate, and hers he knew 
not what — this was what was intolerable, a thing 
not to bear thinking of. 

But now she was dead, all the misery over, 
nothing left but the silence. She had been 
nothing to him for years, torn out of his heart, 
flung out of his life, perhaps with too little pity, 
perhaps with little perception of the great sacri¬ 
fice she had made in giving up to him without 
even a protest her only child: but her very exist¬ 
ence had been a canker in his life; the thought 
that still the same circle of earth enclosed them — 
him and the woman who had once been every¬ 
thing to him, and then nothing, yet always some¬ 
thing, something, a consciousness, a fever, a jarring 
note that set all life out of tune. And now she 
was dead. The strong pain of all this revival 
stung him back to strength. He went out in 
defiance of the doctor, back to his usual work, 
resuming the daily round. He had much to meet, 
to settle, to set right again, in his renewed exist¬ 
ence. And she was dead. The other side of 
life was closed and sealed, and the stone rolled to 
the door of the sepulchre. Nothing could happen 
to bring that back, to renew any consciousness of 
it more. Strange and sad and disturbing as this 
event was, it seemed to settle and clear the turbid 
current of a spoiled life. 

And perhaps the other excitement and climax 
of the life of his neighbour which had been going 
on under the same roof, helped Mr. Mannering in 
the renewal of his own history. When he heard 

19 


290 A House in Bloomshiry. 

Miss Bethune’s story, the silent rebellion against 
his own, which had been ever in his mind, was 
silenced. It is hard, in the comparison of 
troubles, which people who have been more or 
less crushed in life are so fond of making, when 
brought into sufficiently intimate relation with 
each other, to have to acknowledge that perhaps 
a brother pilgrim, a sister, has had more to bear 
than oneself. Even in misery we love to be 
foremost, to have the bitter in our cup acknow¬ 
ledged as more bitter than that of others. 
But yet, when Mr. Mannering heard, as she 
could tell him, the story of the woman who had 
lived so near him for years with that unsuspected 
secret, he did not deny that her lot had been 
more terrible than his own. Miss Bethune was 
eager to communicate her own tale in those days 
of excitement and transition. She went to him 
of her own accord after the first day of his re¬ 
turn to his work, while the doctor hovered about 
the stairs, up and down, and could not rest, in 
terror for the result. Dr. Roland could not be¬ 
lieve that his patient would not break down. He 
could not go out, nor even sit quietly in his own 
room, less he should be wanted, and not ready at 
the first call. He could not refrain from a gibe at 
the lady he met on the stairs. “ Yes, by all 
means,” he said, “ go and tell him all about your 
own business. Go and send him out to look after 
that wretched Hesketh, whom you are going to 
keep up, I hear, all the same.” 

“ Not him, doctor. The poor unhappy young 
creature, his wife.” 


A House in Bloomsbury, 291 

“ Oh, yes; that is how these miserable villains 
get hold upon people of weak minds. His wife! 
Fd have sent him to gaol. His wife would have 
been far better without a low blackguard like that. 
But don’t let me keep you. Go and give the 
coup de grace to Mannering. I shall be ready, 
whatever happens, downstairs.” 

But Miss Bethune did not give Mannering the 
coup de grace. On the contrary, she helped for¬ 
ward the cure which the climax of his own per¬ 
sonal tragedy had begun. It gave both these 
people a kind of forlorn pleasure to think that 
there was a kind of resemblance in their fate, and 
that they had lived so long beside each other 
without knowing it, without suspecting how un¬ 
like other people their respective lives had been. 
The thought of the unhappy young woman, whose 
husband of a year and whose child of a day had 
been torn from her, who had learnt so sadly to 
know the unworthiness of the one, and whose 
heart and imagination had for five and twenty 
years dwelt upon the other, without any possible 
outlet, and with a hope which she had herself 
known to be fantastic and without hope, filled 
Mannering with a certain awe. He had suffered 
for little more than half that time, and he had not 
been deprived of his Dora. He began to think 
pitifully, even mercifully, of the woman who had 
left him that one alleviation in his life. 

“ I bow my head before her,” Miss Bethune 
said. “ She must have been a just woman. The 
bairn was yours, and she had no right to take her 
from you. She fled before your appearance, she 


292 A House in Bloomsbury. 

could not look you in the face, but she left the 
little child that she adored to be your comfort. 
Mr. Mannering, you will come with me to that 
poor woman’s grave, and you will forgive her. 
She gave you up what was most dear to her in 
life." 

He shook his head. “ She had others that 
were more dear to her." 

“ I could find it in my heart, if I were you, to 
hope that it was so; but I do not believe it. 
How could she look you in the face again, having 
sinned against you ? But she left you what she 
loved most. ‘ Dora, Dora,’ was all her cry: but 
she put Dora out of her arms for you. Think 
kindly of her, man ! A woman loves nothing on 
this earth," cried Miss Bethune with passion, 
“ like the little child that has come from her, and 
is of her, flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone: 
and she gave that over to you. She must have 
been a woman more just than most other women," 
Miss Bethune said. 

Mr. Mannering made no reply. Perhaps he 
did not understand or believe in that definition of 
what a woman loves best; but he thought of the 
passion of the other woman before him, and of 
the long hunger of her heart, with nothing to 
solace her, nothing to divert her thoughts from 
that hopeless loss and vacancy, nothing to com¬ 
pensate her for the ruin of her life. She had been 
a spirit in prison, shut up as in an iron cage, and 
she had borne it and not uttered even a cry. All 
three, or rather all four, of these lives, equally 
shipwrecked, came before him. His own stricken 


A House in Bloomsbury. 293 

low in what would have been the triumph of an¬ 
other man ; his wife’s, turned in a moment from 
such second possibilities of happiness as he could 
not yet bear to think of, and from the bliss of her 
child, into shame and guilt such as did not permit 
her to look her husband in the face, but drove her 
into exile and renunciation. And then this other 
pair. The woman with her secret romance, and 
long, long penitence and punishment. The man 
(whom she condemned yet more bitterly, perhaps 
with better cause than he had condemned his 
wife), a fugitive too, disappearing from country 
and home with the infant who died, or who did 
not die. What a round of dreadful mistake, mis¬ 
apprehension, rashness, failure! And who was he 
that he should count himself more badly treated 
than other men ? 

Miss Bethune thus gave him no coup de grace. 
She helped him after the prick of revival, to 
another more steadfast philosophy, in the com¬ 
parison of his fate with that of others. He saw 
with very clear eyes her delusion — that Harry 
Gordon was no son of hers, and that she would be 
compelled to acknowledge this and go back to the 
dreariness and emptiness of her life, accepting the 
dead baby as all that ever was hers: and he was 
sorry for her to the bottom of his heart; while she, 
full of her illusions, went back to her own apart¬ 
ment full of pity for him, to whom Dora did not 
make up for everything as Harry, she felt triumph¬ 
antly, did to herself 

Dr. Roland watched them both, more concerned 
for Mannering, who had been ill, than for Miss 


294 House in Bloomsbm'y. 

Bethune, who had all that curious elasticity which 
makes a woman generally so much more the 
servant of her emotions than a man, often, in fact, 
so much less affected by them. But there still 
remained in the case of the patient another fiery 
^ trial to go through, which still kept the doctor on 
the alert and anxiously watching the course of 
events. Mannering had said nothing of Dora’s 
fortune, of the money which he had refused 
vehemently for her, but which he had no right to 
refuse, and upon which, as Dr. Roland was aware, 
she had already drawn. One ordeal had passed, 
and had done no harm, but this other was still to 
come. 

It came a day or two after, when Dr. Roland 
sat by Mannering’s side after his return from the 
Museum, holding his pulse, and investigating in 
every way the effect upon him of the day’s confine¬ 
ment. It was evening, and the day had been hot 
and fatiguing. Mr. Mannering was a little tired 
of this medical inspection, which occurred every 
evening. He drew his wrist out of the doctor’s 
hold, and turned the conversation abruptly to a 
new subject. 

“There are a number of papers which I cannot 
find,” he said, almost sharply, to Dora, with a 
meaning which immediately seemed to make the 
air tingle. He had recovered his usual looks in a 
remarkable degree, and had even a little colour in 
his cheek. His head was not drooping, nor his 
eye dim. The stoop of a man occupied all day 
among books seemed to have disappeared. He 
leaned back in his chair a little, perhaps, but not 


A House in Bloomsbury. 295 

forward, as is the habit of weakness, and was not 
afraid to look the doctor in the face. Dora stood 
near him, alarmed, in the attitude of one about to 
flee. She was eager to leave him with the doctor, 
of whom he could ask no such difficult questions. 

“ Papers, father ? What papers ? ” she said, 
with an air of innocence which perhaps was a little 
overdone. 

“ My business affairs are not so extensive,” he 
said, with a faint smile ; “ and both you, doctor, 
who really are the author of the extravagance, 
and Dora, who is too young to meddle with such 
matters, know all about them. My bills! — 
Heaven knows they are enough to , scare a poor 
man: but they must be found. They were all 
there a few days ago, now I can’t find them. 
Bring them, Dora. I must make a composition 
with my creditors,” he said, again, with that 
forced and uncomfortable smile. Then he added, 
with some impatience : “ My dear, do what I tell 
you, and do it at once.” 

It was an emergency which Dora had been 
looking forward to, but that did not make it less 
terrible when it came. She stood very upright, 
holding by the table. 

“The bills I don’t know where to find 
them,” she said, growing suddenly very red, and 
then very pale. 

“ Dora ! ” cried her father, in a warning tone. 
Then he added, with an attempt at banter: 
“ Never mind the doctor. The doctor is in it; 
he ought to pay half. We will take his advice. 
How small a dividend will content our creditors 


296 A House in Bloomsbury. 

for the present ? Make haste, and do not lose 
any more time.” 

Dora stood her ground without wavering. 
“ I cannot find them, father,” she said. 

“You cannot find them? Nonsense! This 
is for my good, I suppose, lest I should not be 
able to bear it. My dear, your father declines to 
be managed for his good.” 

“ I have not got them,” said Dora firmly, but 
very pale. “I don’t know where to find them; 
I don’t want to find them, if I must say it, father, 
— not to manage you, but on my own account.” 

He raised himself upright too, and looked at 
her. Their eyes shone with the same glow; the 
two faces bore a strange resemblance, — his, the 
lines refined and softened by his illness; hers, 
every curve straightened and strengthened by force 
of passionate feeling. 

“ Father,” said Dora almost fiercely, “ I am 
not a child ! ” 

“ You are not a child ? ” A faint smile came 
over his face. “You are curiously like one,” he 
said ; “ but what has that got to do with it ? ” 

“ Mannering, she is quite right. You ought 
to let her have her own way.” 

A cloud crossed Mr. Mannering’s face. He 
was a mild man, but he did not easily brook inter¬ 
ference. He made a slight gesture, as if throwing 
the intruder off. 

“ Father,” said Dora again, “ I have been the 
mistress of everything while you have been ill. 
You may say the doctor has done it, or Miss 
Bethune has done it, — they were very kind friends. 


A House in Bloomsbury. 297 

and told me what to do, — but it was only your 
own child that had the right to do things for you, 
and the real person was me. I was a little girl 
when you began to be ill, but I am not so now. 
I’ve had to act for myself, father,” the girl cried, 
the colour flaming back into her pale cheeks, 
“ I’ve had to be responsible for a great many 
things; you can’t take that from me, for it had to 
be. And you have not got a bill in the world.” 

He sat staring at her, half angry, half admiring, 
amazed by the change, the development; and yet 
to find her in her impulsive, childish vehemence 
exactly the same. 

“They’re all gone,” cried Dora, with that 
dreadful womanish inclination to cry ; which spoils 
so many a fine climax. “ I had a right to them — 
they were mine all through, and not yours. 
Father, even Fiddler! I’ve given you a present 
of that big book, which I almost broke my arm 
(if it had not been for Harry Gordon) carrying 
back. And now I know it’s quarter day, and 
you’re quite well ofT. Father, now I’m your little 
girl again, to do what you like and go where you 
like, and never, never hear a word of this more,” 
cried Dora, flinging herself upon his shoulder, 
with her arms round his neck, in a paroxysm of 
tenderness and tears. 

What was the man to do or say ? He had 
uttered a cry of pain and shame, and something 
like fury ; but with the girl clinging round his neck, 
sobbing, flung upon his mercy, he was helpless. 
He looked over Dora’s bright head at Dr. 
Roland with, notwithstanding his impatience of 


2 gS A House in Bloomsbury, 

interference, a sort of appeal for help. How¬ 
ever keen the pang was both to his heart and his 
pride, he could not throw off his only child from 
her shelter in his arms. After a moment his hand 
instinctively came upon her hair, smoothing it 
down, soothing her, though half against his will. 
The other arm, with which he had half put her 
away, stole round her with a softer pressure. His 
child, his only child, all of his, belonging to no 
one but him, and weeping her heart out upon his 
neck, altogether thrown upon him to be excused 
and pardoned for having given him all the tend¬ 
ance and care and help which it was in her to 
give. He looked at Roland with a half appeal, 
yet with that unconscious pride of superiority in 
the man who has, towards the man who has 
not. 

“ She has the right,” said the doctor, himself 
moved, but not perhaps with any sense of inferi¬ 
ority, for though he was nearly as old as Mr. 
Mannering, the beatitude of having a daughter 
had not yet become an ideal bliss to him — “ she 
has the right; if anybody in the world has 
it, she has it, Mannering, and though she is a 
child, she has a heart and judgment as good as 
any of us. You’ll have to let her do in certain 
matters what seemeth good in her own eyes.” 

Mr. Mannering shook his head, and then bent 
it in reluctant acquiescence with a sigh. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


The house in Bloomsbury became vacant and 
silent. 

The people who had given it interest and im¬ 
portance were dispersed and gone. Dr. Roland 
only remained, solitary and discontented, feeling 
himself cast adrift in the world, angry at the 
stillness overhead, where the solid foot of Gil¬ 
christ no longer made the floor creak, or the 
lighter step of her mistress sent a thrill of energy 
and life through it; but still more angry when 
new lodgers came, and new steps sounded over 
the carpet, which, deprived of all Miss Bethune’s 
rugs, was thin and poor. The doctor thought of 
changing his lodging himself, in the depression of 
that change; but it is a serious matter for a 
doctor to change his abode, and Janie’s anaemia 
was becoming a serious case, and wanted more 
looking after than ever would be given to it were 
he out of the way. So he consented to the 
inevitable, and remained. Mrs. Simcox had to 
refurnish the second door, when all Mr. Manner- 
ing’s pretty furniture and his books were taken 
away, and did it very badly, as was natural, and 
got “ a couple ” for her lodgers, who were quite 
satisfied with second-hand mahogany and hair¬ 
cloth. Dr. Roland looked at the new lodgers 
when he met them with eyes blank, and a total 

(299) 


300 A House in Bloomsbury. 

absence of interest: but beginning soon to see 
that the stock market was telling upon the first 
floor, and that the lady on the second had a 
cough, he began to allow himself a little to be 
shaken out of his indifference. They might, 
however, be objects of professional interest, but 
no more. The Mannerings were abroad. After 
that great flash in the pan of a return to the. 
Museum, Nature had reclaimed her rights, and 
Mr. Mannering had been obliged to apply for a 
prolonged leave, which by degrees led to retire¬ 
ment and a pension. Miss Bethune had returned 
to her native country, and to the old house near 
the Highland line which belonged to her. Vague 
rumours that she was not Miss Bethune at all, 
but a married lady all the time, had reached 
Bloomsbury; but nobody knew, as Mrs. Simcox 
said, what were the rights of the case. 

In a genial autumn, some years after the above 
events. Dr. Roland, who had never ceased to keep 
a hold upon his former neighbours, whose depar¬ 
ture had so much saddened his life, arrived on a 
visit at that Highland home. It was a rambling 
house, consisting of many additions and enlarge¬ 
ments built on to the original fabric of a small, 
strait, and high semi-fortified dwelling-place, 
breathing that air of austere and watc&ul de¬ 
fence which lingers about some old houses, 
though the parlours of the eighteenth century, 
not to say the drawing-rooms of the nineteenth, 
with their broad open windows, accessible from 
the ground, were strangely unlike the pointed 
tall gable with its crow steps, and the high post 


\ 


A House in Bloomsbury. 301 

of watchfulness up among the roofs, the little 
balcony or terrace which swept the horizon on 
every side. There Miss Bethune, still Miss 
Bethune, abode in the fulness of a life which 
sought no further expansion, among her own 
people. She had called to her a few of the most 
ancient and trusted friends of the family on her 
first arrival there, and had disclosed to them her 
secret story, and asked their advice. She had 
never borne her husband’s name. There had 
been no break, so far as any living person except 
Gilchrist was aware, in the continuity of her life. 
The old servants were dead, and the old minister, 
who had been coaxed and frightened into per¬ 
forming a furtive ceremony. No one except 
Gilchrist was aware of any of those strange events 
which had gone on in the maze of little rooms 
and crooked passages. Miss Bethune was strong 
in the idea of disclosing everything when she 
returned home. She meant to publish her strange 
and painful story among her friends and to the 
world at large, and to acknowledge and put in 
his right place, as she said, her son. A small 
knot of grave county gentlemen sat upon the 
matter, and had all the evidence placed before 
them in order to decide this question. 

Harry Gordon himself was the first to let them 
know that his claims were more than doubtful — 
that they were, in fact, contradicted by his own 
recollections and everything he really knew about 
himself; and Mr. Templar brought his report, 
which made it altogether impossible to believe in 
the relationship. But Miss Bethune’s neighbours 


302 A House in Bloomsbury. 

soon came to perceive that these were nothing to 
her own fervid conviction, which they only made 
stronger the oftener the objections were repeated. 
She would not believe that part of Mr. Templar’s 
story which concerned the child ; there was no 
documentary proof. The husband’s death could 
be proved, but it was not even known where 
that of the unfortunate baby had taken place, and 
nothing could be ascertained about it. She took 
no notice of the fact that her husband and Harry 
Gordon’s father had neither died at the same 
place nor at the same time. As it actually 
happened, there was sufficient analogy between 
time and place to make it possible to imagine, 
had there been no definite information, that they 
were the same person. And this was more than 
enough for Miss Bethune. She was persuaded 
at last, however, by the unanimous judgment of 
the friends she trusted, to depart from her first 
intention, to make no scandal in the countryside 
by changing her name, and to leave her property 
to Harry, describing him as a relation by the 
mother’s side. “ It came to you by will, not in 
direct inheritance,” the chief of these gentlemen of 
the county said. “ Let it go to him in the same 
way. We all respect the voice of nature, and you 
are not a silly woman, my dear Janet, to believe a 
thing that is not: but the evidence would not 
bear investigation in a court of law. He is a fine 
young fellow, and has spoken out like a gentle¬ 
man.” 

‘^As he has a good right — the last of the 
Bethunes, as well as a Gordon of no mean name! ” 


A House in Bloomsbury, 303 

“ Just so,” said the convener of the county; 
“ there is nobody here that will not give him his 
hand. But you have kept the secret so long, it 
is my opinion you should keepdt still. We all 
know — all that are worth considering — and what 
is the use of making a scandal and an outcry 
among all the silly auld wives of the countryside ? 
And leave him your land by will, as the nearest 
relation you care to acknowledge on his mother s 
side.” 

This was the decision that was finally come to ; 
and Miss Bethune was not less a happy mother, 
nor Harry Gordon the less a good son, that the 
relationship between them was quite beyond the 
reach of proof, and existed really in the settled 
conviction of one brain alone. The delusion 
made her happy, and it gave him a generous 
reason for acquiescing in the change so much to 
his advantage which took place in his life. 

The Mannerings arrived at Beaton Castle 
shortly after the doctor, on their return from the 
Continent. Dora was now completely woman- 
grown, and had gradually and tacitly taken the 
command of her father and all his ways. He had 
been happy in the certainty that when he left off 
work and consented to take that long rest, it was 
his own income upon which they set out — an 
income no longer encumbered with any debts to 
pay, even for old books. He had gone on happily 
upon that conviction ever since; they had tra¬ 
velled a great deal together, and he had com¬ 
pletely recovered his health, and in a great degree 
his interest, both in science and life. He had 


304 A House in Bloomsbury. 

even taken up those studies which had been in¬ 
terrupted by the shipwreck of his happiness, and 
the breaking up of his existence, and had recently 
published some of the results of them, with a 
sudden lighting up once again of the fame of the 
m.ore youthful Mannering, from whom such great 
things had been expected. The more he had 
become interested in work and the pursuits of 
knowledge, the less he had known or thought of 
external affairs ; and for a long time Dora had 
acted very much as she pleased, increasing such 
luxuries as he liked, and encouraging every one 
of the extravagances into which, when left to 
himself, he naturally fell. Sometimes still he 
would pause over an expensive book, with a half 
hesitation, half apology. 

“ But perhaps we cannot afford it. I ought 
not to give myself so many indulgences, Dora.” 

“ You know how little we spend, father,” Dora 
would say, — “ no house going on at home to 
swallow up the money. We live for next to 
nothing here.” And he received her statement 
with implicit faith. 

Thus both the elder personages of this history 
were deceived, and found a great part of their 
happiness in it. Was it a false foundation of 
happiness, and wrong in every way, as Dr. Roland 
maintained ? He took these two young people 
into the woods, and read them the severest of 
lessons. 

“You are two lies,” he said; “you are de¬ 
ceiving tw^o people who are of more moral worth 
than either of you. It is probably not your fault, 


A House in Bloomsbury. 305 

but that of some wicked grandmother; but you 
ought to be told it, all the same. And I don’t 
say that I blame you. I daresay I should do it 
also in your case. But it’s a shame, all the same.” 

“ In the case of my — mistress, my friend, my 
all but mother,” said young Gordon, with some 
emotion, “ the deceit is all her own. I have said 
all I could say, and so have her friends. We have 
proved to her that it could not be I, everything 
has been put before her ; and if she determines, 
after all that, that I am the man, what can I do ? 
I return her affection for affection cordially, for 
who was ever so good to any one as she is to me ? 
And I serve her as her son might. do. I am of 
use to her actually, though you may not think it. 
And why should I try to wound her heart, by 
reasserting that I am not what she thinks, and 
that she is deceived ? I do my best to satisfy, 
not to deceive her. Therefore, do not say it; 1 
am no lie.” 

“ All very well and very plausible,” said the 
doctor, “ but in no wise altering my opinion. And, 
Miss Dora, what have you got to say?” 

“ I say nothing,” said Dora; “ there is no 
deceit at all. If you only knew how particular I 
am! Father’s income suffices for himself; he is 
not in debt to any one. He has a good income 
— a very good income — four hundred a year, 
enough for any single man. Don’t you think so ? 
I have gone over it a great many times, and I am 
sure he does not spend more than that — not so 
much ; the calculation is all on paper. Do you 
remember teaching me to do accounts long ago ? 

20 


3 o 6 a House m Bloomsbury. 

I am very good at it now. Father is not bound 
to keep me, when there are other people who will 
keep on sending me money : and he has quite 
enough — too much for himself; then where is the 
deceit, or shame either? My conscience is quite 
clear.” 

“You are two special pleaders,” the doctor 
said ; “ you are too many for me when you are 
together. I’ll get you apart, and convince you of 
your sin. And what,” he cried suddenly, taking 
them by surprise, “my fine young sir and madam, 
would happen if either one or other of you took it 
into your heads to marry ? That is what I should 
like to know.” 

They looked at each other for a moment as 
it were in a flash of crimson light, which seemed 
to fly instantaneously from one to another. They 
looked first at him, and then exchanged one light- 
ning glance, and then each turned a little aside on 
either side of the doctor. Was it to hide that 
something which was nothing, that spontaneous, 
involuntary momentary interchange of looks, from 
his curious eyes ? Dr. Roland was struck as by 
that harmless lightning. He, the expert, had 
forgotten what contagion there might be in the 
air. They were both tall, both fair, two slim 
figures in their youthful grace, embodiments of 
all that was hopeful, strong, and lifelike. The 
doctor had not taken into consideration certain 
effects known to all men which are not in the 
books. “ Whew-ew! ” he breathed in a long 
whistle of astonishment, and said no more. 


THE END. 


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